From Stampeders head coach/general manager John Hufnagel:

Like every team in the Canadian Football League, we felt good about our selections when the draft was completed on Saturday. We feel we got good value for our picks, provided competition at certain areas and added some solid prospects to our overall Canadian depth.

We added a couple of players who will come in and compete in a year or two — defensive back Eric Fraser (pictured right) and receiver Spencer Armstrong — and the six other players are expected to be in camp this June.

We were pleased and surprised when Tristan Black was still on the board with our second-round pick. He’s a good-looking, physical linebacker.

You can never have too many youngsters on the offensive line and we look forward to getting Steve Myddelton and John Hashem to camp and seeing how they measure up.

Scott McHenry and John Kanaroski are good receivers from the Canada West conference and they bring different attributes to the table. Osie Ukwuoma is a big player who will get a shot at nose tackle.

We feel very positive about our current core of Canadian talent and hopefully these draft picks can come in and compete for places on the squad. It won’t be easy, but the competition will make everyone better.

It usually takes two or three years before teams begin to see how they really did in a draft, so it will be interesting to see how this one pans out.

As much as draft day is a rewarding deal for all CFL teams, it comes with frustrations.

A lot of people around the league are talking about rumours and scenarios leading up to the draft. Everyone’s trying to get the scoop, games are played and wires get crossed. So, from the Stampeders’ point of view, it was very disappointing to hear rumours about us trying to trade up for Toronto’s pick so that we could get Jamall Lee; along with the suggestion that we aren’t pleased with Joffrey Reynolds.

There’s absolutely no truth to either of those things and I would like our fans to be aware of that fact.

We even had a case where someone in our own organization was overzealous in his praise of our draft picks and ended up disrespecting some of our current players. This obviously is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

It was an interesting day. We’re just happy to put it behind us, feel good about our results and get ready for training camp.