It’s hard to believe that I’m going into my 10th CFL season and my 10th Stampeders season.

To be honest, I never imagined that I would play this long but I’m still here because I love this game so much and every year is a special year.

I just never take it for granted. I never look back and I never count the years, to be honest. I just think about the future — the next game and then the next game. Or even just the next play.

So far, it’s worked out for me.

The excitement for the start of the new season is even more now than when I first started because I’ve worked so hard this off-season just to make the team and to be a quality player on the football field.

I still remember my first season-opener in 2003 and I still have the same jitters. That’s why I’m still playing. If I didn’t have the same emotion every time I get on the field and the same butterflies, I’d ask myself some questions.

To be able to participate and compete and try to make the team better is a privilege.

This week, my teammates voted me one of the team captains and I think it’s a special honour when the guys acknowledge you and ask you to represent them on the field before every kickoff. It’s an honour and a privilege.

I never thought I would get an honour like this but once I got it, I told myself, “Just make the best of it and make sure I represent the team well.”

I’m looking forward to our first game against Montreal. It’s going to be a fast-paced game. It’s going to be intense. It’s going to by physical.

Even though we don’t always talk about the Alouettes as rivals, Calgary and Montreal — we are rivals. Since both teams’ coaches came into the league in 2008, we’re the teams who have won the most games in the CFL so in the East and in the West, we are the benchmark teams.

So I think it’s going to be a very high-paced game to determine who is the best team to start the new season.

Marc Calixte, #37
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