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Don’t forget to exhale, but there are plenty of others as well.

“The best way to describe 2019 for the Eskimos is a year of change,” Sunderland told shareholders gathered in the Eskimos locker-room. “That really kicked off for us in free agency. It was the biggest free agency in the CFL, and we didn’t just stick our toe in the free-agency pool, we cannon balled into it. We revamped our roster fast and furious.

“But it didn’t stop at free agency, we continued to add talent and we currently have 30 players that are new to the franchise going into 2019.”

The biggest change in Jason Maas’s coaching staff, aside from Lolley taking over for Mike Benevides, is the reunion of the head coach with former teammates A.J. Gas, the new special-teams coach, and Jason Tucker, overseeing receivers, while St. Albert’s own Jordan Maksymic has been promoted to the offensive co-ordinator role also held by Maas last season.

“We had the opportunity to look at all the coaching staff and see the draft picks and see the work they’ve done and we’ve congratulated him in unison,” Sparrow said of Sunderland’s football ops. “We’re very pleased with what they’ve done.”

GLOBAL SEARCH

With the changes at the top of both the board and the business side, with former president and CEO Len Rhodes stepping down in February, the search continues to find a replacement, while senior vice-president of finance Mandy Johnston has taken over the interim duties.

“We’re in the middle of the process of a formal search with a professional organization and we’ve got great, broad interest locally and all across Canada and elsewhere,” Sparrow said. “So we’re in a stage where we feel really good about prospects and in the coming weeks, we will have interviews happening and being finalized.