Officially, the start of the 2010 Canadian Football League season is still nearly three months away. It’s even longer than that if we’re talking about the regular season rather than pre-season tune-ups.

On the other hand, it can be said that the field work for the new Stampeders campaign actually gets under way this weekend in Florida.

First up is an open tryout in Winter Springs, Fla., the last of a series of public auditions for players looking to get noticed. The Stamps’ winter tryout tour has taken them across the country and has included stops in Tennessee, California, Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Alabama.

The men who attend the open tryouts tend to be a very diverse group. There’s the occasional weekend athlete who is willing to cough up the $80 registration fee in exchange for a chance to work out in front of coaches and personnel staff from a professional football team, but the large majority of the hopefuls are legitimately chasing a career.

“You can see guys from all different walks of life,” said Chris Jones, who in addition to serving as the Stamps’ defensive coordinator is also assistant director of player personnel and football operations. “From guys who were former high-school greats to guys who have played numerous years in the NFL and who still want to play. So it’s a wide, wide range of people you will see. It’s guys from junior college, it’s guys from big-time Division-1 programs in the United States.

“I think there are examples of players (who just needed the right circumstances to be noticed) on our football of team. Milton Collins is probably the biggest example of guys who have been found at these workouts, along with Malik (Jackson). These guys are out there, it’s just a matter of being at the right place at the right time.”

Sometimes, the players attended small schools whose campuses were not regular stops on scouts’ itineraries and never received the attention their ability deserved. Others are making a comeback to the sport after some time off to mend an injury, to complete their studies or to pursue another line of work.

Whatever their background story, the players go through a series of speed and agility drills in an effort to prove they’ve got what it takes to make the cut.

The players who catch the eye of Stampeders brass at these open auditions can then earn themselves an invitation to the team’s March free-agent invite camp in Florida. It’s from this stage that decisions are made about who will be attending the Red and White’s main training camp, which gets under way in June.

In other words, there is a lot of work to do and many people to impress just to earn a chance to try and make the football club.

“Our first tryout this year was Dec. 10 at the University of Memphis,” said Jones. “So there are guys who I contacted Dec. 10 who have been working out just for the opportunity to go to our invite camp and to then try to make it to our vet camp.”

It’s a long and difficult road, but as history shows certainly not an impossible one.

A total of 25 players from the Florida free-agent invitation camp a year ago were brought to training camp and no fewer than 10 of the campers wound up seeing regular-season action for the Stampeders in 2009. The group includes Malik Jackson, who found a home at linebacker for Calgary and was the team’s outstanding-rookie nominee, as well as receiver Jermaine Jackson, defensive lineman Tom Johnson, quarterback Drew Tate and running back Derek Watson.

In prior years, defensive lineman Charleston Hughes, defensive backs Brandon Smith and Milt Collins and running back/kick returner Demetris Summers are just some of the players who came out of the Florida camp to make the Stampeders roster.

For everyone — whether the longest of longshots or the most promising of diamonds in the rough — the next big step in the process happens this weekend in Florida.