Courtesy Winnipeg Free Press:

Expectation can be defined as “a confident belief or strong hope that a particular event will happen.”

In our particular environment it is spawned by accomplishment and backed by the status quo of almost 100 per cent player retention this offseason. It is a process that adheres to the logic that if a team is good one year and remains almost identical the following year, the results should be at least as good if not better.

Due to the presence of these suppositions, it is little wonder that though we have yet to play a single game in the regular season of 2008, I have already been interviewed numerous times as to the expectation of a repeat Grey Cup appearance.

From the perspective of a player who has been there and done that in his career, one critical element that cannot be underscored when it comes to fulfilling any expectations is the fact that you have to go out and earn it each and every week just to be fortunate enough to be in the running for the opportunity to go for it all again.

It is obviously a compliment to be mentioned this early in the season as a potential “Grey Cup contender” but the one thing I would imagine scares most people about such praise is whether the players on the team realize that words and compliments and assessments don’t win ball games for them.

It is easy to write and project and forecast a team’s achievements but unfortunately no one pays those designations any mind when you line up on the field for the first time.

The minute a team goes out onto the pitch thinking they deserve something because of an accomplishment from a previous year is the same minute they get it handed to them by every opponent they figured would be quaking in trepidation.

On the other hand, the 2007 Grey Cup champions, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, actually have themselves positioned quite nicely due to the national public’s expectations, or current lack there of.

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