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Weston Dressler ready for his reincarnation as a Winnipeg Blue Bomber

After eight seasons in a Saskatchewan uniform, Weston Dressler is ready for a new life in Winnipeg. (CBC.)
After eight seasons in a Saskatchewan uniform, Weston Dressler is ready for a new life in Winnipeg. (CBC.)

This year's Labour Day Classic in Regina is more than just another game on the CFL schedule, as anyone who's ever witnessed a rivalry game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers will attest.

The rivalry runs deep on the field and off. Fans may not teach their children to spit on the ground when the opposing city is mentioned, but the hatred is palpable -- at least on game day.

But as intense as the game may be, the intensity level is going to be elevated for Weston Dressler this September.

The 30-year-old CFL veteran receiver will be playing his ninth Labour Day Classic -- but this time not wearing the green-and-white of the Roughriders as he has done in eight previous matches. Almost unbelievably, he will be wearing the colours of the hated Bombers after the Riders unceremoniously dumped him over the winter.

``It will be different from any other game I've played," Dressler says, in typically understated Dressler style. ``For me, its going to be controlling those emotions ..."

As for emotions, let us count the ways.

He'll be returning to a city that became his home, a city where he could barely pop into a convenience store for gum without being recognized and idolized. A city that embraced this diminutive receiver as an example of its hard-working underdog image.

The little guy who could on the team from the little city that can.

A city and team that he loved so much he chose to accept a smaller contract than what was being offered by Ottawa when he returned from an unsuccessful shot at the NFL two years ago.

A city and team that then told him his $240,000 contract was too rich for its blood before cutting him loose. Not traded, not offered a pay cut, but released outright. Not recycled, but just tossed away.

Though Dressler talks now of accepting the reality of the CFL's salary cap, he was stung deeply at the time.

"I am upset and saddened by the fact there wasn't more effort put in by the organization to allow me to remain a Saskatchewan Roughrider," he tweeted at the time, as close as he would come to a public display of anger.

"Through my last eight years with this organizations [sic] I believe my actions and words have always expressed my desire and joy to be a part of Riderville. The negotiations that took place, or lack thereof, led me to believe I was never in the Roughrider plans for the 2016 season and beyond," he added. 

Many in always-sensitive Rider Nation saw his choice of a new team -- the hated Bombers -- as a screw-you to the Roughriders, but Dressler won't characterize it that way. Like his release, it was just business.

``You move on," he says. ``As a player, first and foremost, you want to play and be part of a team that wants you as a part of what they're doing."

Having former teammate Drew Willy calling signals in Winnipeg and former offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice now doing the same job there certainly added to the attraction.

And that's all there was to it, he says.

``Being in this league for eight years, you see it every year," he says. ``You know how it works, seeing guys who are more than capable of playing being released or traded ...

``I was (ready for it.) When you bring in an entire new staff almost from the top down you always know that something different is going to be going on. You kind of prepare for it. Maybe not fully prepared until it happens ... It's tough to take sometimes, seeing friends come and go." 

That was all for public consumption. But it's hard to imagine that a guy who produced five 1,000-yard receiving seasons and added 941 last year in a season dominated by fill-in quarterbacks that his real motivation is to show Saskatchewan GM and head coach Chris Jones that he made the wrong decision.

Labour Day will provide that opportunity face to face.