Courtesy Hamilton Spectator:

The process of making the final decisions got off to a late start.

In the wee hours after the Ticats’ final pre-season game, Charlie Taaffe was still waiting for the game tapes that would help separate the keepers from the others. Tired, and tired of waiting, he decided to just call it a night.

“When I got up (the game tape) was under my door,” Taaffe says.

That was 5 a.m. Between now and early November, the decisions made behind closed doors within the 24 hours or so that followed will prove to have been the correct ones to get the franchise pointed in the right direction, or not.

As Taaffe hit the play button for his review of the previous night’s win over the hated Argonauts — the same thing was happening in coaches’ rooms all over the McMaster University residence — he already had more than a few opinions of who should stay and who should go based on what he’d seen with his own eyes at Rogers Centre.

Three weeks of training camp is helpful to appraise talent. But the game’s always the best measure. So it’s no exaggeration to say despite a decent camp, a couple dropped passes or missed tackles could — and likely did — make the difference for some guys.

“There were a couple guys who really showed up well and may have changed … whether they stay around,” Taaffe says.

By 10:30 when he gathered the staff together, his tape work had made him feel even more sure of some of his choices. But the point of having different people involved is to have different opinions. So as soon as the coaches, general manager Bob O’Billovich, the scouts and guest coaches were ready, he opened the floor and started the debate.

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