SASKATOON — The package arrived on the desk of Craig Reynolds in his Regina office via courier last Tuesday.

The new president and CEO of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the man who engineered the heist of head coach Chris Jones along with eight assistant coaches and five players from the Grey Cup champion Edmonton Eskimos, decided to drop what he was doing immediately.

Reynolds jumped in his car and made the 259-kilometre, two-and-a-half hour trip up Hwy 11 to the team training camp here with the package.

“So there I am, driving up to Saskatoon and I have to stop for gas. That’s when it hit me that I had a lot of money sitting there on the passenger seat,” he said.

He had over $100,000 of jewelry in the package sitting there as he poured the petrol into the tank.

“‘Holy cow, I’ve got 14 Grey Cup champion rings sitting on my front seat.’ That’s when I decided to put them out of sight and sort of pray a little bit for the rest of the drive.”

There are 141 diamonds in each Eskimo Grey Cup ring. Multiply that by 14 and that’s damn near 2,000 diamonds sitting there on the front passenger seat while a guy pours gas into his car.

When Reynolds arrived in Saskatoon, he drove straight to his destination, carried the package directly from his car to the room where Coach Chris Jones was having a meeting with his staff and handed it over.

“I thought it was appropriate for them to open the package and hand them out. I didn’t want to be the one to do that. They earned that through a fantastic year last year in Edmonton,” said Reynolds.

“I hung around and was able to watch their expressions and experience their reactions. It was a cool moment. It was a special moment. They had only seen pictures so they were excited to see it in person. They hadn’t really seen the detail on it.

“I know they were tickled to see where ‘tap-tap’ was engraved on the side of the rings,” he said of the Eskimos rallying cry last year which brought them back from behind in so many football games in winning the last eight straight in the regular season, the Western Final and the Grey Cup game.

Jones and his coaching staff from Edmonton — Stephen McAdoo, Craig Dickenson, Jarious Jackson, Mike Scheper, Phillip Lolley, Jason Shivers, Ed Phillion and Craig Davoren — knew Eskimos GM Ed Hervey didn’t dig 14 rings out of Cracker Jacks packages to send to Saskatchewan. But these rings are special.

“They are awesome. It’s absolutely gorgeous. They did a tremendous job on them and I’m quite proud of it,” said Lolley, the high school coach who gave Jones his first job before moving on and coaching 15 years at Auburn University.

“Whoever designed it, I thought it was fantastic. It’s one of those rings that is just classy and not so big that you’d never really be able to wear it anywhere. It’s really well made and really well-designed,” said Dickenson, who previously won one with Jones in Calgary.

“The night after our president drove up to Saskatoon and gave them to us, we were able to go out for dinner as a staff and most of the coaches had their rings on,” reported Dickenson.

“I know Ed Phillion had his on and Coach Jones had his on but I’m not sure about the other guys around the table and who else did or maybe who didn’t.”

The morning after the coaches received their rings they took the remaining five to training camp breakfast at the University of Saskatchewan dorm to give to Shamawd Chambers, Kendial Lawrence, Otha Foster, Andrew Jones and Thaddeus Coleman.

Jones was one of the first down to breakfast.

“When I came down, coach Jones called me over gave me a good handshake and handed me the box and said ‘Congratulations,’ ” he said.

“I’d seen the pictures of it from when the guys got their rings in Edmonton and it was even better when I opened the box and saw mine for myself. I was blown away.”

This is a guy who previously won Grey Cup rings with the B.C. Lions in 2011 and the Toronto Argos in 2012.

This is also a guy who likes a good practical joke.

One of the boxes of rings Coach Jones had at his table was for his training camp roommate Coleman, who was on his way down to breakfast.

“I sent Thaddeus a text saying ‘Coach Jones wants to see you. Bring your playbook,’ ” he laughed.

Coleman admits he was rattled.

“I’m thinking ‘Bring my playbook?’ I’m cut or something like that. Other guys said ‘Coach Jones wants to talk to you.’ I’m thinking ‘I guess I’m in trouble for something.’

“When I got to the lunchroom Coach Jones had a straight face. Then I saw the smile creep on his face and saw the box and figured out what it was.

“Man, when I first saw that ring, it was the biggest smile I had in a long time. I didn’t expect it to be that nice,” said Coleman.

Chambers, voted the top Canadian player in the Grey Cup, said he will always remember getting the ring presented to him the way he did.

“It was kind of a surreal moment for me. The other guys in Edmonton got their rings first, of course, and we had to wait a while. I thought they were going to wait until we got to Edmonton for Saturday’s game for them to present it to us. But all of a sudden at breakfast, Coach Jones waved me to the far end of the room where he was sitting and gave it to me and gave me a little bit of a hug. Worked for me.”

Nobody in Edmonton is going to have much sympathy for the 14 ring bearers over in Saskatchewan, but it’s a tough page to turn.

It’s not like the 14 ex-Eskimos could all put their rings in security boxes at the bank and put Edmonton in the rear view mirror. The Roughriders have been scheduled to visit Edmonton again and again and again.

No sooner does Saskatchewan leave Commonwealth Stadium Saturday than the Roughriders will be required to do a quick turn around return for a regular season game July 8 and then return again August 26 for another one.

“I certainly can’t comment on how they built the schedule. But it is interesting how it worked out,” said Reynolds.

“To be there three times in quick succession to start the season is interesting. It’ll be a pre-season game there Saturday with a buzz. There aren’t many pre-season games with the storylines we have here with Chris Jones and the coaching staff’s first return to Commonwealth Stadium. To play in Edmonton on our second week of the regular season is exceptionally interesting. I imagine the excitement around that game will be as great as any second game of the regular season as we’ve ever seen just given those off-season story lines.”

“I know our team is very excited to get there and I know Edmonton fans will be excited and pumped up for those games.”

It’s not normal, said coach Lolley.

“I think this is going to be as close to the Iron Bowl as I’ve seen since I’ve been up here. When I coached with Auburn against Alabama all those years, I knew all those guys and had a tremendous amount of friends on the Alabama staff. These games in Edmonton this summer are going to be the closest games to that because you have a lot of guys you think the world of. We won a ring together. I became real close to those players over there. It’s just something you have to do.”

Dickenson suggests you file it under the old saying, ‘He who collects the most experiences wins.’

Since the day Jones left and 14 Edmonton Grey Cup rings made their way to Saskatchewan, the Eskimos versus Roughriders June 25, July 8 and Aug. 26 has been the No. 1 storyline of the season. It adds spice. It’ll be another story to tell your grandchildren, said Dickenson.

“I was glad to see that. I like Edmonton. I enjoyed my time there. I think it’s a beautiful city. I’m happy we’re going there for the three games early. I enjoy the city and I really like that stadium.”

Hey, Edmonton has to get something out of the deal, right?

As for the players, the three games in Edmonton early in the schedule went down different for each.

“With the schedule, there are a lot of things you don’t like. Having the first week as a bye week you don’t like,” said Andrew Jones.

Chambers, like your correspondent, doesn’t think the three Saskatchewan games in Edmonton before Labour Day is anything but intentional to spike declining CFL attendance.

“I’ve never seen anything like it but of course you’d expect that from the league. You try to build stories into games and obviously there are a lot of storylines coming into this season. It’s part of the business side of it and I kind of understand where they’re coming from.

“It’s going to be exciting to go in there and play. I love playing in Commonwealth Stadium. It was an amazing experience for four years. I might catch myself singing the fight song with Bryan Hall in the fourth quarter.”

terry.jones@sunmedia.ca

@sunterryjones