HAMILTON \u2014 With the Hamilton Tiger-Cats still processing the death of general manager Ted Goveia, head coach Scott Milanovich says he won\u2019t use Goveia\u2019s memory as a rallying cry for his team.<\/p>\n
Goveia died last Friday of esophageal cancer. The 55-year-old native of Burlington, Ont., was hired as Ticats general manager Dec. 5, 2024.<\/p>\n
Plans had been made before Goveia\u2019s death to honour his contribution to Canadian football during Hamilton\u2019s Sept. 12 game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the franchise Goveia had spent 11 years with before returning to southern Ontario. Following his death, the contest \u2014 which the Ticats won 32-21 \u2014 became a celebration of Goveia\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
The Ticats (8-5) return to Hamilton Stadium on Saturday night to face the Edmonton Elks (5-8) in the annual Hall of Fame game.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is going to deal with their grief in their own way,\u201d Milanovich said this week. \u201cWe have to give each other the grace to understand that somebody might be handling it differently than we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said to (Orlondo Steinauer, Hamilton\u2019s president of football operations), it makes me sad to walk by Teddy\u2019s office. Everybody\u2019s going through something like that now and I\u2019m being really careful not to try to use it as a rallying cry because I think it\u2019s disrespectful. I know these coaches, players, staff, everybody\u2019s got him in mind and everybody\u2019s going to give their very best for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2025 class will be honoured at halftime. It consists of players Bryan Chiu, Jovan Olafioye, Jeremaine Copeland, Scott Flagel and Darryl Hall as well as builders Glen Johnson and Frank McCrystal.<\/p>\n
For much of the season, Hamilton\u2019s offence was very pass-heavy and led the league in yards through the air, with Bo Levi Mitchell leading all quarterbacks. <\/p>\n
Over their last two games, the Ticats have run the ball exceedingly well \u2014 234 yards in a 26-9 win over Montreal on Sept, 6, then 163 yards versus Winnipeg \u2014 but Milanovich, who\u2019s also the club\u2019s offensive co-ordinator, says he takes many considerations into mind before deciding how to call a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to play the game with, \u2018What\u2019s the score? What\u2019s working for us offensively? What are the elements,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cAll of those things have a factor in how I\u2019m calling a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going in saying, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re pounding it.\u2019 There might be a game where we\u2019re trying to establish the run a little bit ore early for whatever the reason may be (but) usually I\u2019m trying to be somewhat balanced early in a game and then let\u2019s react to what we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg Bell accounted for 293 of the rushing yards and two touchdowns on 42 carries (roughly seven-yard average)<\/p>\n
Hamilton also scored two touchdowns against Winnipeg following interceptions by Jamal Peters and DaShaun Amos. The Ticats have registered a CFL-high 98 points off turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time we get the ball, yes, we want to make plays on defence but we also know how much more important it is to set the offence up as well,\u201d Amos said. \u201cWe know that leads to scores and that leads to winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Receiver Tim White said the offence feels a responsibility to take advantage of opportunities created by either the defence or Hamiltons special teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we can do that, that\u2019s kind of like the natural belief that we have,\u201d he said. \u201cAs an offence right now we just want to continue to get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand that there\u2019s so much more that we can work on and there\u2019s so much more room to grow and we have time to grow some more. We\u2019re just putting our hands down and continuing to work and when we get the opportunity to show it there out on the field during game day, it seems like we\u2019re just putting the points up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton is second overall in offensive scoring (27.2 points per game), tied for second with Saskatchewan in offensive TDs (35) and first in passing touchdowns (26). The Ticats\u2019 defence has also forced a league-high 32 turnovers \u2014 second in interceptions with 17, tied with Winnipeg for first in fumble recovers with nine.<\/p>\n
Rookie linebacker Devin Veresuk, who left Friday night\u2019s game on a stretcher, was a full participant in practice. He\u2019s expected to play Saturday.<\/p>\n
Hamilton is looking to sweep the two-game season series with Edmonton. The Ticats earned a 28-24 road win Aug. 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve made some changes, they\u2019ve adapted, they\u2019ve grown together so I think they\u2019re a way better team than the last time we saw them,\u201d Amos said. \u201cEven back then, we knew they were very talented and were just figuring it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to bring about challenges \u2026 they\u2019re going to come ready and give us their best shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 19, 2025.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAMILTON \u2014 With the Hamilton Tiger-Cats still processing the death of general manager Ted Goveia, head coach Scott…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-154983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}