Hamid Mahmoudi listens to
drill instructions during Team Canada's practice yesterday in Lachine for
the NFL Global Junior Championships.
CANADA - He is the smallest member of
Team Canada's under-20 junior football team and also one of its youngest at
17.
But Hamid Mahmoudi, a 5-foot-9, 146-pound defensive back, is convinced he
was born to play football - even if his country of origin is Iran, where
soccer rules.
"I moved to Canada with my family when I was 2 and learned to play and love
football," said Mahmoudi, one of 36 Team Canada players introduced yesterday
at a press conference for the NFL Global Junior Championships VII to be held
Jan. 22-25 as part of Super Bowl week in San Diego.
Other countries competing are the host U.S., Mexico, Japan and Team Europe.
Team Canada has done well at this event, winning a gold medal in 2000 and
finishing second to the Americans the past two years.
Playing in a 15,000-seat high-school stadium next week in sunny San Diego
amid the hoopla of Super Bowl festivities appealed to Mahmoudi, who has
played most of his previous championship games on cold November days in
Quebec.
"It's going to be the trip of a lifetime," said Mahmoudi, who was introduced
to football as a youth on school playgrounds in Dollard.
The trilingual athlete (English, French and Persian) played minor football
for North Shore's Westpark before enrolling at Coll?ge Notre Dame, a
high-school football powerhouse in Montreal, after his family moved to N.D.G.
Team Canada head coach Ian Breck said Mahmoudi's size is misleading.
"He's not that big, but he's a football player," Breck said. "He not only
has the athletic skills, but also the emotional maturity to play at this
level."
Considering team officials scouted more than 1,000 players at evaluation
camps across the country during the past year, just being selected to the
roster was a major accomplishment for three dozen Canadian teenagers. The
team breakdown per province is as follows: Quebec (23 players), Ontario (9),
Alberta (2), Manitoba (1) and New Brunswick (1).
Jonathan St. Pierre, a 6-foot-3, 300-pound offensive lineman from Longueuil,
is one of eight returning players for Team Canada. He said the Global Junior
Championships offer the best calibre of football competition he has ever
faced and he's hoping to attract some interest from American colleges.
"Last year in New Orleans, we played in front of thousands of fans and
cheerleaders and marching bands," the 19-year-old CEGEP player from College
douard Montpetit said. "It was fun, but we're not used to that kind of
atmosphere.
"This year, we want to show the world that Canada can play football with
anybody."
Team Canada, which leaves for San Diego on Sunday, will play four 14-minute
games (one against each team) on Jan 22. The two teams with the best records
after the round-robin will meet in the final on Jan. 25.