Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:

It’s not exactly the NFL draft extravaganza that took place in New York City on the weekend on the NFL’s own television channel and network, but it’s a start.

For the first time in the history of the CFL, TSN will be covering the CFL draft tomorrow, providing interviews and in-depth coverage, and will be broadcasting it not on television but on their website alongside the CFL.

It’s really been a season of firsts for the CFL coming off of the 2007 season and about to enter the 2008 campaign. A salary cap is in place that is being enforced, a former CFL head coach is now the director of officiating, the Ottawa franchise has been conditionally sold for an unprecedented franchise fee, a drug policy is in the works, and now the always overlooked CFL entry draft is becoming a full-scale production.

All new coverage and exposure of the players in the CFL is a good thing, but the entry draft provides some unique access for the diehard fans and active players that we have never been exposed to before.

For the players that will be tuning in — and I imagine there will be quite a number of us — we finally get to see some footage of the rookies that will be joining our teams in training camp. So often as training camp kicks off, as a veteran player, every day you walk amongst countless numbers of new bodies without any idea of who they are, where they came from, or what they have accomplished to this point. New American and Canadian recruits become these faceless entities without pedigree that you simply line up with or against in the pre-season and see whether they stick or ship when the smoke clears.

With the advent of a CFL draft show, not only will we now be able to recognize and learn about the new additions that are soon to be joining our teams, but give our own estimations and evaluations of their skill sets and try to get a sense of the needs our teams are trying to fill and who is going to go about attempting to fill them.

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