TORONTO — Weston Dressler got the call of a lifetime. Now he can sit back and reminisce over a successful career full of touchdowns, yards and loud fans.
Henoc Muamba and Donnovan Bennett caught up with the honourary ‘Canadian Air Force’ member to discuss his coming induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2024 in this week’s edition of The Waggle Podcast.
“First of all it sounds still a little strange to me,” said Dressler. “The first time I got the call it was almost like a little shock. Not a call that you’re just sitting around waiting for. You never know when it’s gonna come, if it’s gonna come. So to get the call and just sit back and reminisce, (you) think back on the good days on the football field, that’s for sure.”
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Dressler accumulated over 10,000 yards as a receiver over 11 seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers, while scoring 61 times. The now Hall of Famer was also able to be part of both sides in one of the most storied rivalries in the CFL.
“I’m fortunate to play for both of those organizations,” said Dressler. “Obviously over the first eight years of my career I was in Saskatchewan and got to enjoy many Labour Day wins and the crowd on our side. But always traveling to Winnipeg the following week was usually the toughest week as a receiver, as far as communication goes, just because of the crowd noise. Trying to get your time down with the waggle and time things up was pretty much impossible.
“I learned that pretty quickly once I was on Winnipeg traveling to Saskatchewan it was the exact same situation. Rowdy fans, loud fans, fans that are passionate. I (already) knew that. To experience it on both sides is pretty cool. To have those experiences with my teammates I wouldn’t trade it.”
The Bismarck, North Dakota native will forever be etched into CFL lore from now on, but it wasn’t always like that for a young receiver coming out of the University of North Dakota. Dressler had to learn and adapt to the game before writing down his name in Canadian football history.
“I don’t remember exactly which game it was but it was early on in my rookie season. We were driving towards the end of the half. We completed a pass, there was like five or six seconds left in the half and we just got into field goal range so I was like ‘let’s go, let’s hurry up let’s kick the field goal’,” Dressler told Muamba and Bennett. “Then the clock ran to zero and I started walking into the locker room for halftime ‘man we messed up, we could have kicked the field goal’ but then I turn around the field goal team is out there, we’re kicking the field goal.
“I didn’t know the play clock took precedence over the game clock. It was a small rule that I hadn’t experienced yet at at hat point. So many little details, little things that are different that I learned along the way. I tried to learn as much as I could as fast as I could, but there’s obviously little things that you miss at that point and little things that don’t get thought but you figure it out as you go.
“I always had to remind myself in the early days it was still football. When you’re running a route, you have to get open, when that ball is in the air, you have to catch it.”
Get open and catch passes is exactly what Dressler did over his career. More precisely, the two-time CFL All-Star and 2013 Grey Cup champion caught 715 regular-season passes, showing more than just adaptation towards the Canadian game, but close affinity.
Such affinity led him to an honourary position with the ‘Canadian Air Force’, a group made up of four national receivers, Andy Fantuz, Jason Clermont, Rob Bagg and Chris Getzlaf, who played for the Roughriders in 2009 and 2010.
“I love those guys. Bagg and Getzlaf, I played with them my whole time in Saskatchewan, Fantuz for a little while as well. Those guys were the Canadian Air Force and I was honoured to be an honourary member, being from North Dakota, pretty much Canadian or mistaken for a Canadian many times. It was just working together. We were always pushing each other a little bit harder, no matter what. If one guy was down or tired the rest of the crew would bring him up, we would never let each other get away with anything. Always pushing each other to be the best that we could be. But most importantly we were best friends and still are really good friends to this day. To be able to play this game and do it with guys that you enjoy every single day, that’s what makes it special.”
