Ottawa, Ontario – Justin Trudeau may have been en route to China for his first official visit, but that didn’t stop four members of the BC Lions from trying to seek out the 23rd Prime Minister when they toured Parliament Hill late Monday afternoon. Hey, can you blame them? This Lions squad has been resilient all season long and has refused to take “no” for an answer.

“I actually thought I saw him and yelled out ‘JT!’ but it was just a lookalike,” said Marco Iannuzzi, who arranged a private tour with one of the government’s communications advisors. “In all seriousness, I saw on Twitter that he was heading out of the country, but I wanted to make the other guys actually believe we were seeing him.”

Iannuzzi, along with Richie Leone, Mike Benson and Jason Arakgi embarked on the tour with a personalized jersey for the Prime Minister in hand. After recent photos appeared of Trudeau without a shirt while wedding-crashing in Tofino, the boys felt he could use a new fashionable piece of clothing. Perhaps we should have told him the CFL’s all-time leader in special teams tackles was part of the group. Perhaps he would have delayed his trip across the Pacific Ocean.

“Seeing the House of Commons and going into the Memorial Chamber where all of the soldiers who fought and died for Canada were honoured,” said Leone when asked what his favourite part of the tour was. The Lions’ kicker was also beaming after he bought a pretty fancy coffee cup from the gift shop.

Along with those two areas, the players had a nice view of the Ottawa River from atop the Peace Tower and also took a stroll through the Library of Parliament, where everyone was told to be quiet. Although the current Prime Minister was not present, his father Pierre Elliott Trudeau was among the former Canadian leaders whose portrait was seen on the tour. “It’s cool to think about everyone who has walked these halls in the past, from Trudeau’s father who was a pretty popular guy and a guy I even know a bit about,” Leone added.

With the football club staying in our nation’s capital for four extra days after beating the REDBLACKS, there has been plenty of opportunity to take in some of the great history on display, as well as partake in other activities away from the practice field. The extra team-bonding is something they all made sure to take advantage of in this unique situation.

“In all the times that we get to travel across the country, we usually leave each place too quickly so it has been really nice to stay in this city,” Iannuzzi said. “Arakgi and I are going to bring our families back here for a little holiday, probably only in the summer though. We aren’t too sure about the winter.”

That would be smart planning by the two veterans. Statistically, Ottawa is the third-coldest Capital in the world, behind only Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Astana, Kazakhstan. Weather aside, Iannuzzi knows spending a couple of hours at Parliament Hill will make any Canadian more proud.

“It was really neat to see. You’re just looking at hundreds of years of history and what each of those former PMs did for this country over such a long period of time, you can’t help but just sit there in awe.”

And even if they didn’t meet the current leader, walking around with a personalized jersey and seeing the confused looks on the faces of other tourists will always make for a great story.

“Had we met him I just would have thanked him for being a great leader and allowing me to play in this great country,” Leone said.

I think we can all agree Mr. Trudeau would make for a great guest appearance on Stadium Cribs.

Matt Baker: mbaker@bclions.com