CFL/LCF : à toute chose malheur est bon ?

CFL/LCF : à toute chose malheur est bon ?

Sports is full of stories of athletes who, struck by personal tragedy, shake it away by hurrying back to their game and play with heightened intensity and motivation to prove that no adversity can crush them.

No such thing happened last week after Anthony Calvillo learnt his wife suffers from cancer.

Such news is no doubt dramatic and, for the Calvillos, devastating. Anthony Calvillo could be expected to skip the last two regular season games and return to the Alouettes for the play offs.

Instead, the quarter back decided to call it a season, when the real season was only about to begin.

Strange decision. Calvillo is, after all, a professional athlete and paid accordingly : when a bank manager’s wife is struck with cancer, her husband is usually not given indefinite leave - whether paid or unpaid, this is not the central issue- to look after her.

Besides, the real season could have been a really short one for the Alouettes and Calvillo would have then been able to stay full time with his wife till next season training camp.

The decision may speak volumes about the atmosphere inside the team’s dressing room and each player’s commitment to the club : you are not supposed to let your team mates down.

But was it truly Calvillo’s decision ? He no doubt endorsed it, but did he originate it ?

If I am not mistaken, all communication regarding the starting quarter back’s decision was handled by the club itself.

Could it be -how to phrase it tactfully ?- that the consequences of Ms. Calvillo’s illness - though obviously not the illness itself- were received by the Alouettes management like the « force majeure » or « act of God » they had prayed for and could save, if not their season, part of their face ?

Were the Alouettes so convinced their season, with or without Calvillo, was going nowhere that they pressed their quarter back to stay with his wife so they could have the perfect excuse for a likely early play offs elimination : Anthony Calvillo did not play ; who knows if he had... ?

What a relief and what an easy way out for coach and general manager Jim Popp : what a perfect excuse to grant oneself one more season wearing two caps over one’s inflated scalp.

It remains to be hoped, for the fans and the players, if not the management, that Marcus Brady will beat the odds. And that Ms. Calvillo will prove her doctors’ optimism right. (P.M.)