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His team is coming off a fourth-quarter collapse in the Grey Cup, is getting rather long in the tooth and has the usual long list of free agents to deal with. But while Blue Bombers GM Kyle Walters acknowledged he’s still dealing with a Cup hangover, he was drinking from a glass half-full in his season-ending session with the media on Tuesday. The reason for his optimism: he has more good players already under contract for next year, some of them young and only getting better. “So the idea of, ‘This is the end of the road, the team is in a free-fall downward,’ I don’t think is accurate,” Walters said. “We have a good group of guys and we were in a one-point game with 10 minutes left... before things went downhill. “With the young guys we have under contract that contributed, I’m feeling probably better now than in years past in regards to the transition to youth heading into next season.” Walters pointed to the receiving corps, with rookies Ontaria Wilson, Keric Wheatfall and Kevens Clercius – all with another year on their contracts – and the defensive line as areas that got an injection of promising youth this year. As for his aging vets, they all want to come back for another run at the 2025 Grey Cup, to be played in Winnipeg. The key ones already under contract include 36-year-old quarterback Zach Collaros, running back Brady Oliveira, receiver Nic Demski, defensive back Deatrick Nichols, centre Chris Kolankowski and kicker Sergio Castillo. Other mainstays, like D-lineman Willie Jefferson (33), O-linemen Stanley Bryant (38) and Pat Neufeld (35), have said they want to re-sign. Most of the rest could be up for grabs as free agents, come February. Some, like receiver Dalton Schoen, quarterback Chris Streveler and linebacker Adam Bighill, are coming off season-ending injuries, which may or may not affect their negotiating positions. “Nobody’s interested in taking pay cuts,” Walters said. “Every single agent and every single player at the very least would expect to come back for what they’ve made. Now, organizationally we may have a different view of, ‘At this point in your career we no longer see you at this price point, but we see you at this price point.’ And that’s when the fun starts, I guess.” The “fun” might include trying to re-sign a player or two before the calendar flips to 2025, using the dollars he managed to stay below the salary cap. “We’re going to carve out, to the cent, how much money we have just to use a signing bonus on somebody this year,” Walters said. It’s always a case of give and take: any raise Walters gives to one, he has to take away from another to stay within the cap. Someone like cornerback Tyrell Ford, among the league’s top ball hawks, is due for a significant pay bump. “When you’re a Canadian that’s starting at a traditional American position, your value is through the roof,” Walters said. “I expect him to be highly sought after in free agency, for sure, and deservedly so.” As another key part of the CFL’s stingiest secondary, fellow defensive back Evan Holm is another player in line for more. “Up here would be my No. 1 goal,” Holm told me as he cleaned out his locker last week. “And we have a baby due in March. Just seeing everyone else with their children around, the environment would be pretty fun. We’ll see.” As for the baby he’s nurtured for the last 10 years, Walters just wants to keep feeding the thing the same ingredients that have seen it develop into a perennial championship contender. Having the Grey Cup in their own back yard doesn’t change anything, the GM says. They’d be trying to get there if it was played in Timbuktu. “An organization shouldn’t say, ‘Because we’re hosting, we’re really going to give it our all this year.’ Because then the response from the players and coaches would be, ‘Well, why wouldn’t we do that every year?’” They’ve done it every year for the last five, usually by spending to the max. In a perfect world, Walters and O’Shea would also use next year to groom a successor to Collaros, while trying to get to another Grey Cup. But the CFL and its proliferation of one-year contracts is far from a perfect world. So they’ll wait to see what and who shakes from the quarterback tree. Arguably the biggest apple, Vernon Adams, went from B.C. to Calgary hours after Walters spoke to the media. “Can your young guys on your roster develop, or do you have to go out in free agency and potentially pay more for an experienced backup that you think can take over in the future?” Walters wondered aloud. “Those are challenging questions that we’ll have organizationally. But primary focus is putting a roster together to win the Grey Cup next year.” That work begins immediately. Even before the hangover fades completely. “You know, when you take a step back... of course, the last three final games were very frustrating,” Walters said of his team’s three-game Grey Cup losing streak. “And you can’t lump them all together. But going to five Grey Cups... we’ve got a good football team here. “I expect us to be good.” paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca X: @friesensunmediaUkraine, China To Enhance Agricultural Cooperation
Phound Wins TMC Labs Unified Communications Innovation of the Year AwardWASHINGTON (AP) — American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide Tuesday because of a technical problem just as the Christmas travel season kicked into overdrive and winter weather threatened more potential problems for those planning to fly or drive. Government regulators cleared American flights to get airborne about an hour after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a national ground stop for the airline. The order, which prevented planes from taking off, was issued at the airline's request. The airline said in an email that the problem was caused by trouble with vendor technology that maintains its flight operating system. Dennis Tajer, a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association, a union representing American Airlines pilots, said the airline told pilots at 7 a.m. Eastern that there was an outage affecting the system known as FOS. It handles different types of airline operations, including dispatch, flight planning, passenger boarding, as well as an airplane's weight and balance data, he said. Some components of FOS have gone down in the past, but a systemwide outage is rare, Tajer said. Hours after the ground stop was lifted, Tajer said the union had not heard about any “chaos out there beyond just the normal heavy travel day.” He said officials were watching for any cascading effects, such as staffing problems. Flights were delayed across American's major hubs, with only 37% leaving on time, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics company. Out of the 3,901 domestic and international American Airlines flights scheduled for Tuesday, 19 were canceled. Cirium noted that the vast majority of flights were departing within two hours of their scheduled departure time. A similar percentage — 36% — were arriving at their destinations as scheduled. Meanwhile, the flight-tracking site FlightAware reported that 3,712 flights entering or leaving the U.S., or serving domestic destinations, were delayed Tuesday, with 55 flights canceled. It did not show any flights from American Airlines. Cirium said Dallas-Fort Worth, New York’s Kennedy Airport and Charlotte, North Carolina, saw the greatest number of delays. Washington, Chicago and Miami experienced considerably fewer delays. Amid the travel problems, significant rain and snow were expected in the Pacific Northwest at least into Christmas Day. Showers and thunderstorms were developing in the South. Freezing rain was reported in the Mid-Atlantic region near Baltimore and Washington, and snow fell in New York. Because the holiday travel period lasts weeks, airports and airlines typically have smaller peak days than they do during the rush around Thanksgiving, but the grind of one hectic day followed by another takes a toll on flight crews. And any hiccups — a winter storm or a computer outage — can snowball into massive disruptions. That is how Southwest Airlines stranded 2 million travelers in December 2022, and Delta Air Lines suffered a smaller but significant meltdown after a worldwide technology outage in July caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations even more disruptive than during slower periods. That is especially true for smaller budget airlines that have fewer flights and fewer options for rebooking passengers. Only the largest airlines, including American, Delta and United, have “interline agreements” that let them put stranded customers on another carrier’s flights. This will be the first holiday season since a Transportation Department rule took effect that requires airlines to give customers an automatic cash refund for a canceled or significantly delayed flight. Most air travelers were already eligible for refunds, but they often had to request them. Passengers still can ask to get rebooked, which is often a better option than a refund during peak travel periods. That’s because finding a last-minute flight on another airline tends to be expensive. An American spokesperson said Tuesday was not a peak travel day for the airline — with about 2,000 fewer flights than the busiest days — so the airline had somewhat of a buffer to manage the delays. The groundings happened as millions of travelers were expected to fly over the next 10 days. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 40 million passengers through Jan. 2. Airlines expect to have their busiest days on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations more disruptive than during slower periods. Even with just a brief outage, the cancellations have a cascading effect that can take days to clear up. About 90% of Americans traveling far from home over the holidays will be in cars, according to AAA. “Airline travel is just really high right now, but most people do drive to their destinations, and that is true for every holiday,” AAA spokesperson Aixa Diaz said. Gasoline prices are similar to last year. The nationwide average Thursday was $3.04 a gallon, down from $3.13 a year ago, according to AAA. Charging an electric vehicle averages just under 35 cents per per kilowatt hour, but varies by state. Transportation-data firm INRIX says travel times on the nation’s highways could be up to 30% longer than normal over the holidays, with Sunday expected to see the heaviest traffic. Boston, New York City, Seattle and Washington are the metropolitan areas primed for the greatest delays, according to the company. —— Associated Press writers David Koenig, Mae Anderson and Mike Pesoli contributed to this report.