Eskimos receiver Walker is CFL’s top rookie

Walker was honoured Thursday at the CFL awards banquet, receiving 66-of-75 first-place ballots in voting by the Football Reporters of Canada.

The 40-year-old quarterback was named the CFL’s outstanding player for the second time in his 16-year career and received the Tom Pate award for community service.

It’s the younger Campbell’s fifth trip to a Grey Cup as an assistant or head coach and sixth overall, including the 1977 championship game in Montreal, the only one he attended as a kid, and the only one his father’s Eskimos lost.

“If we bring our A game and they bring their A game, we’re going to win because our A game is better than everybody else”, Macdonell said. “That’s stuff that can be hard on a family at home”. Ottawa is to face the Edmonton Eskimos in the CFL final Sunday in Winnipeg.

Adam Bighill of the B.C. Lions is the CFL’s top defensive player. Burris, who has won two Grey Cups could also be in the running for his second Outstanding Player award after throwing for nearly 5,700 yards with 26 touchdowns this season. The Ottawa Redblacks ground game is averaging 85.9 yards per contest, and Jeremiah Johnson leads the way with 448 yards and nine touchdowns. It’s an odd one because Westerman was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and played his college football at Rutgers.

Calgary Stampeders kicker Rene Paredes was the finalist. Sinopoli played quarterback at the University of Ottawa, winning the 2010 Hec Crighton Trophy as Canadian university football’s top player.

Ottawa led the league in sacks (62) and was No. 1 against the rush (70.8 yards a game allowed).

Manitoba has a host of world-class attractions and unique tourism experiences for football fans to explore including the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Journey to Churchill, noted Premier Selinger. “To be in this league, I am so thankful about it”.

The night didn’t go as well for the only member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers nominated for an award.

You can say: “Wow, I really like the way SirVincent Rogers protects Burris’s blind side”.

“The players believe in him”, said Campbell.

“Well, it sounds like a good deal to me, I don’t even have to win the Grey Cup and I get to win coach of the year?” said Campbell. “Wow, this is wild”.

“I left there with my head held high, know that we failed but that I’d done everything possible to help us try and win, it just didn’t work”, Maas said.

Of the 30 times a quarterback has been voted MOP in the past half-century, those winners have only captured the Grey Cup the same year eight times.

“I’ve been looking at the weather for the last two weeks in anticipation of this”, he laughed.

Bighill outpolled Hamilton Tiger-Cats linebacker Simoni Lawrence, the East Division nominee as outstanding defensive player, 46-29.

“I just want to thank the CFL and my team and coaching staff for putting me in a great position to be successful”, he said. “But my ultimate goal is to be a champion and for that it’s going to take all of those guys that I mentioned and my teammates that I recognized”.

“This being my fourth Grey Cup appearance, I remember one year being with a (Calgary) team, and they kinda … the whole curfew went out the window, I guess you’d call it, and we didn’t win that Grey Cup”, Burris said. I had observed Ottawa from the outside and just had a really strong suspicion this could be a really great thing to be a part of.

His anger, in the interview room after Calvillo won the award, was breathtaking. Walker had 89 catches (Edmonton rookie record) for 1,110 yards and six TDs despite playing only 12 games (10 starts).

“I know our defence is better than theirs”, he said matter-of-factly.