It is obvious in the cold harsh light of January—as it was even back in the dimmer warmth of late autumn—that the 2024 Hamilton Tiger-Cats were not good enough.
Not nearly good enough. And it wasn’t limited to last season, when an injury-and-turnover-plagued 2-9 start doomed a strong closing two months to too little, too late.
After Hamilton finished first or second in the CFL’s East Division in six of the new stadium’s first seven seasons, it’s now been three years, following the final play of the 2021 Grey Cup, since a Ticats team has played November football in the city’s east end.
That’s well below the expected standards of the Hamilton Sports Group, which owns the Ticats, so you knew that significant changes would be coming.
They have come, in what is arguably the largest reconstruction of Tiger-Cats football ops since old Ivor Wynne Stadium was torn down in 2012.
The overhaul was essentially triggered during the regular season when two of the three coaching coordinators were replaced and it continued through November’s intensive search for a new general manager to succeed Ed Hervey, who departed for the Edmonton Elks. Hervey was well respected within the organization, but it became clear that the Ticats would be making a change at GM when the team granted Edmonton’s request to interview him to run their football operations.
In early December, Ted Goveia was introduced as the new general manager and he’s been working 24/7 since and, realistically, before then.
Goveia is currently on a lengthy scouting trip through the U.S., which began last Sunday and will include next week’s CFL meetings in Charlotte, N.C., held in conjunction with the annual convention of the American Football Coaches Association. That congress is the networking epicentre of the North American gridiron scene.
Goveia is remaking the personnel department and will soon announce some new staff members, with further additions to follow further down the off-season road.
Reorganization is not a negative statement upon the skills of the men who are no longer with the Ticats’ football ops and that’s reflected in the fact that three of them—assistant GM Spencer Zimmerman, assistant director of personnel Spencer Boehm and player personnel consultant Rich Massaro—are now on Hervey’s staff in Edmonton.
And this corner would like to send an emphatic shout-out to Drew Allemang, who will not return to the Tiger-Cats but has long been bound to the Hamilton franchise by his skill, insight and heritage. His father Marv was a starting lineman on the 1986 Grey Cup champions and his brother Matt is still overseeing the club’s video efforts. Drew will certainly land on his feet in a significant CFL position in the near future.
Allemang spent 17 years in various positions in the organization and is an incredibly knowledgeable and connected analyst of Canadian talent. He rose steadily through the organization starting as a volunteer in the personnel department while he was the team’s assistant equipment manager.
In 2019, he was named co-manager of football operations and two years later was named assistant GM and director of Canadian scouting. He was instrumental in scouting and recommending talent such as, among many others, perennial all-star Brandon Revenberg, now-NFLer Nikola Kalinic, versatile Sean Thomas-Erlington, plus guard Coulter Woodmansey, safety Stavros Katsantonis and go-to receiver Kiondré Smith.
Allemang should be proud of his tenure here.
But change is constant in pro sport, a definite truism for the Ticats this winter. Head coach Scott Milanovich has already hired a new defensive coordinator in Brent Monson and will round out his coaching staff in the coming weeks.
At the corner of Melrose and Cannon this is clearly going to be—and already is—an off-season of consequential change.
