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Orlando Franklin, Rob Ford’s jersey among the many Canadian Super Bowl connections

Andrew Bucholtz

Sunday's upcoming Super Bowl has plenty of Canadian connections, and several have been on display so far this week. Toronto-raised Orlando Franklin is the Denver Broncos' regular starting right tackle and a key member of their offensive line, and he's getting plenty of attention from Canadian media outlets thanks to his remarkable story. From CBC's Michael Shulman, here's a look at how Franklin went from in-trouble-teen to star football player:

"We really had no money,” says [childhood friend Shawn] Williams. “You would want to get food, talk to girls, so we would get in trouble. …stealing cars, trying to be cool, stuff like that.”

...The trip to jail seemed to be the sobering lesson that motivated Franklin.

His head coach with the Scarborough Thunder, Roberto Allen, says Franklin agreed to sign a contract with his mother saying that he would stay out of trouble.

Allen soon saw a change in Franklin's performance.

“That last year when he played with us he was very focused,” says Allen. “He grew, he wanted this. He kept saying to me, I’m going to be the first one to make it.”...

With Franklin starting to turn things around at home, his mother went looking for work in Florida in hopes that she could move there with him to increase his chances to advance in his football career.

"I owe so much to my mom," Franklin told the Toronto Sun.

“When I said I wanted to move to Florida, she quit her job and moved down there a week later. You have a lot of parents who want to see their kids succeed, but you don’t have a lot of people who pick up and relocate just to accommodate a 15- or 16-year-old kid.”

While that relocation and the higher visibility it gave Franklin (leading to a scholarship to the University of Miami, where he starred en route to the NFL) proved essential to Franklin's career, Sportsnet's Kristina Rutherford wrote in October that it was another decision his mother Sylvia Allen made that was the most pivotal moment for him; namely, letting him sit in a Toronto jail for six weeks in 2002:

This time, his mom refused to bail him out. “That’s where you want to be?” Sylvia said during one of their daily phone calls. “You’ll live there.” Kingsley tried to convince his mom to go get his brother, but for six weeks, Franklin sat in a young offenders cell (he remembers it being two weeks). And while he was there, he actually thought about his future. He thought about football. He says that stint in the kids’ big house taught him the most valuable lesson he ever learned. “It was hard, knowing your mom won’t come get you, but I thank her,” Franklin says. “When I had opportunities after that to get myself in trouble, I was like, dang, my mom left me in there for weeks. How long is she going to leave me in there if I get myself into trouble again?”

Franklin has come back to his old Toronto neighbourhood on numerous occasions to help with kids' initiatives there, so it's not surprising he has plenty of fans in the city. One notable one is controversial football-loving mayor Rob Ford, who wore a Broncos' jersey with Franklin's name and number to a press conference Monday. Of course, that led to some notable Ford-mocking on Twitter:

You have to wonder if in the event of a Broncos' loss, the curse of Rob Ford will be blamed the same way it was at the Argonauts' playoff loss last year. Either way, though, the Seahawks have some notable Canadian content of their own. Punter Jon Ryan played CIS football with the Regina Rams before playing in the CFL with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 2004-2005, and tight end Luke Willson is both a CFL draft pick (by the Argonauts in 2012) and a former member of the Canadian junior national baseball team. (The Seahawks also have an American player who used to be a CFL star in Brandon Browner, but he's currently suspended by the league (and that might be thanks to his time in the CFL, as the NFL appears to have penalized him for missed drug tests during that time). There also are tons of Vancouver-area fans who regularly make the trip down to Seattle, and the Seahawks have worked with the B.C. Lions on fan events north of the border. Whoever emerges victorious Sunday, some Canadians are sure to be thrilled, while others will be dismayed. It should be a great game, and it's one with plenty of Canadian connections.