Courtesy Edmonton Journal:

Tim St. Pierre knew he had officially touched down in landlocked Edmonton this week when someone asked what his father does for a living.

“I’m the son of a longshoreman,” said the rookie linebacker for the Edmonton Eskimos.”

And what, exactly, is a longshoreman?

“Wow,” he told his blank-faced inquisitor. “I’ve never been asked that before. He works at the Hamilton docks.

“Have you ever seen those Mafia movies where they bring those big containers in? He’s like a crane operator. We’re a blue-collar family from a blue-collar town similar to what Edmonton is, or so I’ve heard. Different industry, same kind of town.”

St. Pierre may work in a different trade than his dad, in a different town, but the 22-year-old plans to bring the same kind of attitude to his first job in the CFL.

The five-foot-11, 235 pounder knows special teams are the ticket to employment in the professional ranks. He learned that from Mike McLean, his former defensive co-ordinator at St. Mary’s University.

McLean toiled for seven years on special teams for the Eskimos, and he figures his old club has a gem in St. Pierre.

“Timmy? He’s a shark,” McLean said Thursday from Toronto where he’s now the head coach at York University. “Once he gets out on the football field, his eyes roll back in his head and he runs around and chews on people.”

Read More….