{"id":23754,"date":"2019-05-09T18:56:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T22:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23754"},"modified":"2019-05-09T18:56:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T22:56:54","slug":"sac-grad-tackles-his-way-to-cfls-stampeders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/sac-grad-tackles-his-way-to-cfls-stampeders\/","title":{"rendered":"SAC grad tackles his way to CFL\u2019s Stampeders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\nJake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linebacker Fraser Sopik traded his red for\npurple in the 2015 season, and has come full circle back to red in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The St. Andrew\u2019s College graduate was\nchosen in the fourth round of the Canadian Football League Draft last week by\nthe Calgary Stampeders, after a stellar four-year career with the Western\nMustangs of USports. He was the 31st overall pick in the draft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve grown up playing football for as\nlong as I can remember,\u201d said Sopik. \u201cI grew up in Scarborough, just east of\nthe city, and I started playing there when I was six or seven, and have been\nplaying ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The six-foot, 194-lb. Sopik shone on the\nfield for the Saints in his varsity years, named a two-time OVFL All-Star. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was a two-time OUA All-Star with the\nhigh-powered Mustangs squad, leading the line in tackles in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you want to win, and you want to\ncompete, and you want to be the best, Western is the place to go,\u201d said Sopik,\nwho helped his team to a Vanier Cup victory with the Mustangs in the 2017\nseason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sopik admits his size may be on the lower\nend of the scale for such an in-your-face, aggressive position, yet his confidence\nmore than makes up for what he lacks on the scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to go out there, I\u2019m going to\ntry to make plays, I\u2019m going to be aggressive and get in people\u2019s faces, I\u2019m\ngoing to do all those things because I love this game and I\u2019m competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After being named both the USports and OUA\nOutstanding Stand-Up Defensive Player of the Year, Sopik\u2019s name gained on\nteam\u2019s draft rankings come the CFL Combine last month, where he posted a 4.79\nsecond 40-yard dash as well as ten reps on the bench press, before strapping on\nthe pads and showing his greatest asset: his mental tenacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m someone who is versatile,\u201d said\nSopik. \u201cI can do a lot of things on the football field, and a lot of things\nthat other people can\u2019t. I\u2019m a pretty special player and I think a player that\npeople would be happy to have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Andrew\u2019s varsity head coach Len Gurr shared his own message of\ncongratulations for one of his former stars on Twitter, adding \u201cAnother great\n(St. Andrew\u2019s) old boy is headed to the CFL. No doubt that (Sopik) was one of\nthe best players in the CFL Draft. The (Stampeders) are going to be thrilled\nwith this pick. Just wait until the pads go on!\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linebacker Fraser Sopik traded his red for purple in the 2015 season, and has come full circle back to red in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/2019-05-09-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6b8","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 22:05:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}