{"id":728413,"date":"2026-06-10T22:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/728413\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T22:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:16:11","slug":"hogan-four-argos-heading-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/728413\/","title":{"rendered":"Hogan: Four Argos Heading Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not an unusual occurrence. An athlete plays a road game against his hometown team, eager to show off in front of friends and family.<\/p>\n

When the Toronto Argonauts play the Alouettes at Percival Molson Stadium in Montreal on Friday, four players will do just that; receiver Kevin Mital, linebacker Brian Harelimana, defensive end Jeremiah Ojo, and cornerback L-P Gauthier.<\/p>\n

All four were raised in the area, with the latter three also playing their U SPORTS ball at Universite de Montreal, while Mital played at Laval.<\/p>\n

Playing against the Als will be a new experience for Gauthier, who will be making his Argo debut after being selected in the third round, 22nd overall, of this year\u2019s CFL draft. The CEGEP product of Montmorency College was a conference all-star last year, then put on a show at the CFL Combine, running the fastest 40-time at 4.50 seconds.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s excited about his first game as an Argo.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pleasure, especially in Montreal,\u201d he told Argonauts.ca. \u201cI\u2019ll have my family and everybody there wearing baby blue, that\u2019s going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps slightly less amusing has been the challenge of lining up against pro receivers for the first time. Going man-to-man against receivers from Sherbrooke or McGill is a little different than lining up against players like Damonte Coxie every day.<\/p>\n

But the 24-year-old cornerback wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had great battles,\u201d said Gauthier, breaking into a broad smile. \u201cCoxie is a phenomenal player. He got me sometimes, but iron sharpens iron and I get better when he challenges me the most. Against the guys from Hamilton (in the two pre-season games) there were some great players, but at some point, it\u2019s just focusing on what I can control, on the fundamentals and on my technique.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremiah Ojo played his first CFL game in Montreal a year ago. He played his CEGEP at John Abbott College and was the Argos first-round pick in 2025 but never had the chance to strut his stuff on defence, being limited to special teams play.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s more confident this season, having gone through a full season, though not accomplishing what he had hoped. He\u2019s used that disappointment as motivation for this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year I definitely would have liked to have been in the rotation, but it is what it is. I trust that all\u2019s well that ends well and everything happens in God\u2019s time. It definitely was motivation to prove that I do have the ability to play on the defensive line.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Argos are confident that he can, adding free agent Jonathan Kongbo and signing Paris Shand, the team\u2019s second rounder last year. They\u2019ve established one end spot as a Canadian position, with Shand also able to move inside.<\/p>\n

All three played well throughout training camp, seamlessly rotating in and out. Kongbo has played the most with the first unit, but neither Ojo nor Shand have looked even slightly out of place in their reps.<\/p>\n

Ojo has drawn on the experience of his rookie season and paused for a second when asked what was the most important thing he discovered last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing I\u2019ve learned is that the little deposits will always bear fruit. Everything you sow bears fruit. To continue to deposit, even if it\u2019s five minutes a day of film or extra work, it will continue to bear fruit; so continue to sow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is one thing that Ojo learned last year that he\u2019s trying to implement in 2026; finding tickets for a game in his hometown. Each player is given a pair of tickets to road games, and the four Montrealers have been scrambling to find enough tickets for friends and family, looking for teammates who can give them theirs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to compete with Kevin Mital and Brian Harelimana,\u201d he said, bursting out laughing when asked about the hunt for tickets. \u201cThey\u2019ve been trying to get everybody\u2019s tickets. Right now, I\u2019ve got at least 14 and I\u2019ll see if I can steal some of their tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gauthier, perhaps unaware of the extremely competitive market for teammates tickets, let folks back home fend for themselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody bought their tickets in advance, knowing that the first game was going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will be different for his friends and family, most of whom grew up as Alouettes fans, as did Gauthier, who said that Marc-Antoine Duquoy was his favourite player, but that era of fandom is behind him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got nobody left there (to cheer for) now that\u2019s for sure,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

All four players are looking forward to finally playing a regular season game after a long camp and longer off-season. The quartet is hoping to leave after their trip home with some good memories and more importantly, with two points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not an unusual occurrence. An athlete plays a road game against his hometown team, eager to show…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-728413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728413","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=728413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}