CFL Planning CFL Lottery and Draft this Month for European Players

[jerrym]

The CFL will hold a lottery and draft of European players who attended this year's CFL Combine.

The first overall pick will be determined by lottery Thursday, April 4 followed by one round of picks on April 11 at 1 p.m.EST. Only prospects who attended the CFL combine in March are eligible to be selected. ...

As part of the 2.0 initiative, 18 global players were invited to the combine for evaluation by talent evaluators from around the league. CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie wants two roster spots designated for “global players”, as part of the new collective bargaining agreement. ...

Players from Germany, Finland, France, Denmark and Italy worked out in Toronto. The European players and affiliated organizations paid for their own flights, but the league covered the hotel rooms and food. And testing results were decidedly mixed.

In January, the CFL and its Mexican league partner held a combine and subsequent draft, which went three rounds.

CFL teams will have three separate 2019 draft classes: Mexicans, Europeans and Canadians.

​https://3downnation.com/2019/04/03/c...raft-in-april/

[doubleblue]

Marshall Ferguson better get his European Mock Draft ready.

[AngeloV]

Marshall Ferguson better get his European Mock Draft ready.

I'm sure he can't wait to be referred to as clueless on here again.

[gilthethrill]

Argos select 5th...could be a decent lineman (O or D) available.

[jerrym]

The article below gives the entire draft order. The last place Argos were unlucky in finishing fifth in a lottery weighted in their favour.

The nine CFL teams will have an opportunity to select one of the 18 Europeans who attended the league’s national combine last month in Toronto.

The league held a weighted lottery — the last-place team in 2018 had the best chance to get top selection, while the first-place team had the worst chance — to determine the order of picks in the one-round draft.

After Hamilton, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will make the No. 2 selection. The remainder of the draft order will consist of Montreal, Edmonton, Toronto, Saskatchewan, B.C., Ottawa and Calgary.

Germany leads the way with six players available. There are four each from France and Finland and two each from Italy and Denmark.

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/sports-...ted-in-combine

[jerrym]

Here's a look at Danish WR Frederick Nielsen.

https://www.cfl.ca/2019/04/09/denmar...lence-critics/

[jerrym]

The CFL draft list identifies two players as having Canadian football experience: RB Asnnel Robo from Universite de Montreal and LB Maxime Rouyer from McGill.

NAME	POS.	TEAM	HOMETOWN
Jordan Bouah	WR	Saddleback College Gauchos	Rome, Italy
Valentin Gnahoua	DL	Berlin Rebels	Le Mans, France
Thiadric Hansen	LB	Potsdam Royals	Flensburg, Germany
Marc Anthony Hor	DL	Frankfurt Universe	Mannheim, Germany
Kimi Linnainmaa	WR	Helsinki Roosters	Espoo, Finland
Mads Nielsen	DL	Copenhagen Towers	Vejle, Denmark
Frederik Nielsen	WR	Potsdam Royals	Aalborg, Denmark
Okko Outinen	DE	Helsinki Roosters	Hämeenlinna, Finland
Benjamin Plu	WR	Thonon-les-Bains Black Panthers	Le Mans, France
Asnnel Robo	RB	University de Montreal	Cayenne, France
Maxime Rouyer	LB	McGill	Troyes, France
Roni Salonen	LB	Braunschweig New Yorker Lions	Vantaa, Finland
Hendrik Schwarz	WR	Marburg Mercenaries	Marburg, Germany
Arttu Tennberg	OL	Porvoo Butchers	Helsinki, Finland
Alessandro Vergani	OL	Schwäbisch Hall Unicorns	Monza, Italy
Sonny Weishaupt	QB	Grenoble Centaures	Aschaffenburg, Germany
Max Earvin Zimmermann	WR	Potsdam Royals	Berlin, Germany
Johannes Zirngibl	DE	Straubing Spiders	Landau, Germany

https://www.cfl.ca/2019/04/04/cfl-un...uropean-draft/


Another player who has played Canadian football is Valentin Gnahoua who played one year for McGill before spending two years with Berlin in the German League.

The excitement part of the equation for Gnahoua spiked this week when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, owners of the first pick in the draft, called him up to get to know a little more about him. “It’s kind of a long way until Thursday but I’m very excited for the process,” he said. “I’m very happy to be in the position that I am today. I will wait now.”

He was mostly happy with his performance at the combine. He tested well against his European peers, with his bench press (24 reps) the second-best number on the day. He was fourth in the 40 (4.84 seconds) and the vertical leap (31.5 inches), third in the three-cone drill (7.31 seconds), fifth in the shuttle (4.47 seconds) and eighth in the broad jump (nine-feet, 0.75 inches). He injured his hamstring running the 40, which hurt his time in that event and limited him in the one-on-ones. The biggest challenge of his weekend was the interviews with the teams.

“It was kind of stressful because the nine teams were in the same room,” he said. “The questions were very basic, not very personal questions. But it was stressful as a kid coming from overseas and being in front of scouts and GMs like this at the combine.”

https://www.cfl.ca/2019/04/10/oleary...uropean-draft/

[jerrym]

Okko Outinen believes his physicality could help him land a CFL draft spot.

Outinen played hockey before swapping his skates for cleats and it was the contact and strength that drew him to both of the sports. ...

Outinen was one of 18 ‘global’ players to get invited to the CFL Combine presented by New Era last month. He put up 21 reps on the bench press and jumped 9’0.38″ in the broad jump. The six-foot-four, 282-pound D-lineman did not participate in the 40-yard dash, vertical jump or the 3-cone and shuttle drills.

He did, however, participate in the one-on-one sessions, putting his skills in the trenches on display for scouts and general managers from across the league. Outinen’s goal was to shine a light on the quality of football he plays in Finland, while also hoping he caught a team’s attention enough to want to draft him in the European draft that will occur on April 11.

https://www.cfl.ca/2019/04/10/physic...inen-football/

[jerrym]

Not surprisingly three of the first four players selected had played some Canadian football in USports: DL Vanlentin Gnahoua, RB Asnnel Robo, and LB Maxime Rouyer.

The first overall pick went to Hamilton as determined by lottery which was held on Thursday, April 4. Only prospects who attended the CFL combine in March were eligible to be selected.

Selection	Team	Name	Position	Country
1	Hamilton Tiger-Cats	Valentin Gnahoua	DL	Le Mans, France
2	Winnipeg Blue Bombers	Thiadric Hansen	LB	Flensburg, Germany
3	Montreal Alouettes	Asnnel Robo	RB	Cayenne, France
4	Edmonton Eskimos	Maxime Rouyer	LB	Troyes, France
5	Toronto Argonauts	Marc Anthony Hor	DL	Mannheim, Germany
6	Saskatchewan Roughriders	Max Zimmermann	REC	Berlin, Germany
7	BC Lions	Benjamin Plu	REC	Le Mans, France
8	Ottawa REDBLACKS	Jordan Bouah	REC	Rome, Italy
9	Calgary Stampeders	Roni Salonen	LB	Vantaa, Finland

Country Breakdown:
4 – France
3 – Germany
1 – Italy and Finland

Positional Breakdown:
3 – Receivers and Linebackers
2 – Defensive Linemen
1 – Running Back

https://3downnation.com/2019/04/11/n...uropean-draft/

[OV Argo]

I'm sure he can't wait to be referred to as clueless on here again.

Oh. c'mon; somebody would refer to such an inscrutable authority on Canadian football like Ferguson as clueless ? - i find this very hard to believe. ;o)

[jerrym]

While the media has focused on Europeans coming to the Combine in Canada, there are Canadians, such as Akeem Foster, heading the other way.

Akeem Foster heads to Finland as the other side of the CFL 2.0 coin.
“I think the game of football is universal, or it needs to be universal,” the former CFL starting receiver said on Tuesday, shortly after the Kotka Eagles announced they’d signed him. He’ll join the second-division team for its season-opener against Helsinki on May 25. ...

When it comes to CFL 2.0, there has been a lot of discussion about international players coming to Canada, but the flip side of it — Canadian players at either end of their careers coming onto the radar of the international teams — seems to be easily forgotten. Foster knows he’s not the first Canadian to go overseas to play football but he hopes more will follow him in the future. ...

Foster, 32, was the 25th overall pick in the 2010 CFL Draft. The St. Francis Xavier product won a Grey Cup with the BC Lions in 2011, was traded to Winnipeg in 2013 and spent the 2014 season with Edmonton. He has 1,020 career receiving yards and nine touchdowns in his CFL career.
“I am really excited that we signed Foster for this season and proud we can bring this calibre player to Kotka,” Eagles head coach Niclas Carpelan said in a team-issued statement. “It is also nice that at the same time we had the first Finnish player drafted to CFL, we get a former CFL player coming into Finland."

"I’m just excited to get back on the field and play the game that I love and also bring the game of football over to Finland,” Foster said. ...

Foster was injured in that 2014 season in Edmonton and took a year away from the game to heal up. In 2016, he played with the Tri-Cities Fever in the National Indoor Football League. He’d hoped to play for a team in Nebraska in 2017 but had work visa issues and returned home to Ajax, Ont. ...

He worried that the end of his playing career had come for him long before he was ready to hang up his cleats. Two things happened to help keep him going. First, he joined some of his old high school teammates on a touch football team. They ended up winning a provincial championship.

https://www.cfl.ca/2019/04/17/oleary...-side-cfl-2-0/