Roughriders add more converts after Mexican visitors experience football in Saskatchewan
At the ideal time, the SaskTel MaxTron became the MexTron.
Two visitors from Mexico were warmly welcomed in late August when their names dominated Mosaic Stadium’s big screen during an afternoon tour.
“That’s awesome!” Juan Aguirre Salazar, co-owner of the Mexicas LFA pro football team, exclaimed upon seeing the message.
“I’m very grateful. It just shows the level of co-ordination in the organization. We’re here and you’re already getting the scoreboard ready and you do that.
“It shows that every little piece is working together. That’s something we have to learn and work towards.”
Salazar was accompanied by his wife (Rebeca Martinez) and two close friends (Itzel Escorsia and Garth Johnson).
When Salazar and Martinez made plans to visit Canada, Johnson — who resides in Katepwa — invited the couple to take in the Aug. 31 Labour Day Classic between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“When Garth first told us, he said, ‘This is our big game — a big rivalry game,’ ” Salazar said. “We wanted to see it.”
So it came to be.
“We’ve had the opportunity to go to many NFL games and even a couple of Super Bowls, and the Labour Day Classic experience was on par with the best stadiums in the U.S.A.,” he marvelled.
“Being down on the field for the teams coming in was a surreal experience. After the anthem with the flyover, I was ready to get my pads and helmet on and go flying down the field for one last kickoff coverage.”
The game, like the airplanes just before kickoff, flew by.
“One of the main differences we noticed between the NFL and CFL was the pacing of the game,” Salazar said. “Although I’ve watched many CFL games on TV, I’d never noticed how much faster the game is.
“The 20-second game clock and the three downs make the strategy completely different, especially in the last minutes of each half.
“I can’t remember how many times I told my wife, ‘One first down and it’s over,’ yet two downs later we were punting and had to trust our defence for one more stop.”
During the stop in Saskatchewan, Salazar took note of so much that occurred on and off the field, before and after the game.
“We’re learning a lot about the professionalism you guys have,” he said. “The CFL is 100-some years old. Our league is 10 years old.”
The Mexicas franchise, based in Mexico City, is part of the 10-team Liga de Fútbol Americano Profesional de México (LFAPM).
Salazar was invited to join the ownership group six years ago, when he re-established formal ties with a sport he played collegiately in Puebla, 200 kilometres from his home base of Mexico City.
“The college game in Mexico is very strong,” he said. “We have four big college programs. They have lots of tradition and they have lots of fans.
“For a professional league, it’s just starting to shift from the college atmosphere where you have basically families and friends of the players to more like a pro style where you have fans going there.
“The last two years, we’re starting to feel that shift where people go to games not because their brother or their friend is playing, but because they’re really getting into being a fan of the team.
“They go there and cheer for their team and not necessarily for Number 72 or Number 34. That’s what we really want as a long-term project. We need fans to have that focus where they root for their city and not just for their friends.”
Mexicas LFA, based at a college stadium in Mexico City, generally draws crowds in the range of 4,000.
“There’s two teams in the north that are usually pulling about 15,000 to 18,000,” Salazar noted. “In the city, we’re competing against soccer, baseball, basketball and other sports.
“In the smaller markets, they have huge crowds. In those places, the atmosphere is wild. It’s so much fun.”
There is so much football tradition in Mexico, even though the pro game is relatively new to the country.
“College football in Mexico goes way, way back,” Salazar said. “It has been played since the ’30s. It has been growing.
“Right now, we have many college football programs where the players are real athletes and they’re finishing their careers right at the moment when they’re reaching their athletic peak. They’re 22, 23 years old and that’s it.”
Salazar himself reached that point a quarter-century ago after playing defensive back in college.
Without a professional option, he went into the pharmaceutical business and became very successful in that field. However, there wasn’t a medicinal remedy for the chronic football itch.
“It’s my passion,” he said with a smile. “After college, I had to go into an office and work all day. Then some college friends invited me into the league.
“When this opportunity arose of getting a franchise, it was great. It is hard work, but I love it.”
In a decade, the LFAPM has grown from four teams to six to 10. Each club is allowed to dress up to 12 Americans. The migration has also proceeded in the opposite direction, with three Mexican-born players having made it to the NFL practice-squad level.
Via the Global initiative, there has also been a Mexican influence in Canada. Offensive lineman Rene Brassea, for example, spent the 2019 CFL season on the Roughriders’ practice roster.
It was Salazar’s turn to be introduced to Mosaic Stadium leading up to and during the 60th Labour Day Classic.
“I’ve really been converted,” he said. “Everyone in the stadium was just so friendly. Few experiences compare to high-fiving people in the rows above and below yours after (Tevaughn Campbell’s 112-yard interception return on a two-point convert attempt by Winnipeg).
“Although we had a (Mexican) player play in Calgary some years ago and I had followed that team closely, we can now proudly say we’re part of Rider Nation!”
