After a short closed practice at Mosaic Stadium on Tuesday afternoon, the Saskatchewan Roughriders got on the plane headed for Hamilton as they will meet the Tiger-Cats Thursday night in the first game of the 2019 CFL season.

For quarterback Zach Collaros, the game will hold special meaning as it will be the first time he has played against his old team in Hamilton having not played last year when the two teams battled it out due to injury.

Because of that, Collaros admits the contest is more than just a regular game.

You want to say it’s just a regular game, but I’d be lying to you if it wasn’t.” Collaros confessed. “I’ve got about 40-45 people coming to the game and I still have a lot of good friends in that organization so there definitely is.”

For Head Coach Craig Dickenson, this will be his debut as Riders head coach.   The 47th head coach in team history says he can now make the decisions and have those decisions stick.

“The main thing is I’ll be finally able to call what I want to when I want to.  No one can over-rule me on that” Dickenson said with a chuckle. “Other than that, I have to figure out things like when to throw the challenge flag.  That’s the nice thing about the being the head coach—all the opinions and ideas you have you can act on them and execute them.”

When asked if he has told anyone about a Gatorade shower if successful, he admitted he hasn’t thought about it but if it means he gets one for a win, then he is all for it.

620 CKRM’s game-day coverage on Thursday will start at 2 with the play-by-play at 5.