As a team, the Tiger-Cats’ goal for 2026 is to build on 2025, grow the assets that they already had, and develop and nurture new strengths.
You could say the same thing about Season 2 of Made In The Hammer, the club’s in-season documentary, which follows on the heels of last year’s five-part runaway success, “Made in the Hammer.” Both major projects are sponsored and fully powered by Porter Airlines.
The first episode of Season 2, titled “The Climb”, debuted on June 30th on Ticats.ca and on the Ticats YouTube channel and will then air three more episodes on successive days late in the schedule, with some “mini-episodes” appearing at appropriate times during mid-season to keep the narrative humming.
The 2026 documentary, shot with Hamilton Sports Group’s widely-praised cinematic and production values, evocative settings and lighting, and unfettered inside access to parts of a CFL season to which fans are rarely privy, is produced and written by Taylor Iannarilli, Director of Creative for HSG, which owns the Ticats.
Iannarilli, who co-produced last season’s “Made in the Hammer” with local journalist legend and unapologetic Ticat fan Stephen Brunt, says the new documentary is a total organizational effort, with important cross-pollination from all departments of the franchise. He particularly acknowledges the artistic work of producers Zakk Di Sabatino and Daniel Pordham, who man the cameras and mics with him, and will each take primary responsibility for one of the final three episodes.
Whereas in 2025 the documentary began later in the season, this time the team has had the advantage of knowing since early winter that there would be a second year. Among many new features, there is high-def film of free agency signings and the CFL draft strategy room, revealing looks into the heart of training camp facilities at McMaster, a different Ticat alumnus narrating each episode, beginning with Hamilton native and current broadcast team member Matt Bucknor, and a heavy focus on three franchise core players—Bo Levi Mitchell, Kenny Lawler and Stavros Katsantonis—which also include visits to their homes.
“This year we wanted to try something different because last year it was well into the season when we decided to make the documentary,” Iannarilli told Ticats.ca. “Training camp was much more of a quick montage than actually showing it like we can do this year.
“And we are going to focus on those three players. We want to make our bigger stars bigger. Bo: quarterback, leader of the team, has had this massive resurgence, coming back with back-to-back 5,000-yard seasons and seems better than ever; Kenny, 14 touchdowns last year, making a new legacy in Hamilton; and Stavros, one of the heartbeats defensively, especially with him signing a three-year deal. He’s a guy who’s going to be here and continue to have an impact.”
“And all three of those guys are great personalities off the field as much as they are on the field.”
And all three are also—as they’ve repeatedly demonstrated in media scrums and personal appearances—eloquent, self-evaluating and incisive about their sport and about life.
The opening episode flashes back to the disappointment of last season’s gripping Eastern Final, which football operations president Orlondo Steinauer describes as a vital learning experience and “a failure (to win) is not final.” It then moves smoothly through the off-season mechanics—“the work never stops,” Bucknor narrates—and into a grinding training camp which has its share of team-bonding pranks but which Mitchell, a 14-year veteran, also says feels much longer than it actually is and likens to “being stranded on a boat or in a desert.”
Mitchell has said before that he’s motivated by his wife and two daughters, and also by wanting to help newer players play in championship games as he has in his remarkable career, but this year, it was even more poignant because his father Dwight “Mitch” Mitchell, a massive supporter and astute analyst of Ticat football, died in March, just a few weeks before camp opened.
“Losing my dad this off-season was tough,” Mitchell said behind the wheel on his way north to training camp, “it was expected at some point, but my dad was absolutely my biggest fan. He was obsessed with the team. My ‘why’ this year is just a little extra motivation…doing it for my dad.”
Iannarilli says of that clip: “We want to tell stories and showcase our guys and lives in a way they’re comfortable with, and losing a parent is far from easy. It’s only a small bit in this current episode, but it was an emotional moment, for sure, and you can tell what it meant to Bo.”
Mitchell was forthright again after the heartbreaking season-opening loss to Montréal, saying if he hadn’t thrown a pick-six in a game in which the Cats were riding a lead they would have won.
The opening episode was scheduled to conclude and be edited for broadcast after the second game of the season in Winnipeg, always a tough place to play and where they were pummelled 40-3 in their most recent visit in September, after winning their four previous games. But they came up with a huge 37-27 character win despite being without marquee middle linebacker Wynton McManis and rallying after shutdown corner Jamal Peters suffered a terrifying injury early in the game.
“That got us to the point where for first time in six years the team did not start at 0-2,” Iannarilli said. “It adds a redemption arc: how bad the game in Winnipeg last year was and Winnipeg’s been a flagship team for seven or eight years now. It wasn’t ideal having a statement game, almost a must-win game, this early in the season, but (the Cats) really delivered. It was nice to be able to end our first episode on a high note like that to show that the Ticats, who seem to start slow every year, are not starting slow. Winning the game like that shows that this is different.”
The narrator mic will pass from Bucknor to a different alumnus on each of the final three episodes, dropping on consecutive days late in the season.
“Listening to the Ticat Audio Network, I really liked Matt Bucknor’s voice and then had the idea of, ‘Why not have alumni as the narrator of the main episodes?’ Iannarilli says. “There’s going to be a Bo episode, a Kenny episode, and a Stav episode, so why not have an alumnus who played that position? Ideally, without giving anything away, there will be a quarterback, a wide receiver and a defensive back. You could probably guess who those names will be, but we’re hoping to have a surprise or two.”
Speaking of surprises, was there any worry about taping the final three episodes throughout the season, but not showing them until the end of the season?
“We want to evolve and change the way we do things, tell the story in a different way each year,” he answers. “The risk is yes, the season could go poorly, there could be key injuries, but I also think that is part of the story. A hero’s journey is the going through it, and I also think doing it over the course of the season allows our team to be a lot more versatile, allowing Zakk and Daniel to do more and be even more creative.”
“We’re trying to showcase these players off the field. It’s not just what happens between the lines…it’s how these guys evolve as people.”
“If everything goes the way we hope it does this season, there might have to be a three-hour Director’s Cut. And I’ll have all December to work on that.”
