Tiger-Cats’ special teamer up for CFL Canadian humanitarian award

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Published October 27, 2022 at 1:32 pm

Curtis Newton is rehabbing a blown-out knee, but he stands a chance to give the Hamilton Tiger-Cats back-to-back winners of the CFL’s humanitarian award.

The Tiger-Cats and the league announced that Newton, a linebacker who is an effective special teams leader when healthy, is the club’s nominee for the 2022 Jake Gaudaur Veterans’ Award. The award is presented annually to a Canadian player who demonstrates the attributes of Canada’s veterans: strength, perseverance, courage, comradeship and contribution to communities.

Newton was involved in Ticat teammate Dane Evans’s Play It Forward initiative. The quarterback, who is of Wichita descent, hosted 100 Indigenous youths at Tim Hortons Field for a day full of fun activities and games.

Newton also supports Interval House Hamilton and the Be More Than a Bystander program to help end violence against women.

The 28-year-old Newton is a sixth-year CFL veteran who has been with the Tiger-Cats since 2017. Prior to this season, he had never missed a game — even though special teams plays have a high-frequency of full-speed collisons — until he tore an anterior cruciate ligament this season.

Last season, Tiger-Cats offensive lineman Chris Van Zeyl captured the Gaudaur Award. Van Zeyl’s good works in the Hamilton area included sleeping in his car on a winter night to raise awareness about housing deprivation in the city and surrounding region.

The award is typically presented on the Friday of Grey Cup week, two days before the championship game. The Grey Cup is in Regina on Nov. 20.

The other eight nominees are: David Mackie, fullback, British Columbia Lions; Tanner Green, fullback, Edmonton Elks; René Paredes, kicker, Calgary Stampeders; Dan Clark, centre, Saskatchewan Roughriders; Mike Miller, fullback, Winnipeg Blue Bombers; Henoc Muamba, linebacker, Toronto Argonauts; Brendan Gillanders, fullback, Ottawa Redblacks; and Landon Rice, offensive lineman, Montréal Alouettes. Rice played for Hamilton from 2014 till ’18.

(Cover photo: Hamilton Tiger-Cats.)

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