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For the first time in more than 10 months, Abdul Kanneh walked into TD Place on Thursday.

On Friday night, he’ll again be at the stadium, lining against many of the friends he shared a Grey Cup win with last November in Toronto.

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“It’s not going to be weird, ” said Kanneh, who played three seasons in Ottawa before signing with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as a free agent. “It feels the same walking in here, like I’m walking to work. I have love for the boys over there. I have friendships I’m probably going to have for the rest of my life. But (Friday) when I get on the field, I don’t know you. I couldn’t hit them for the last three years in practice so we’re going to see how it goes.”

Kanneh had high hopes when he signed with the Ticats, but injuries have limited him to five games and his team struggled out of the gate, starting the season 0-8 before getting on a second-half roll with a 5-3 record down the stretch.

“It was very frustrating, I wasn’t out there near three-quarters of a season,” said Kanneh. “Being on the sidelines watching while the boys were battling without me, that was hard. Seeing where we’re at right now, seeing how we’re playing, I can just imagine if I was healthy, if everybody else was healthy, what we could have done.

“Adversity happens. You come out of the off-season thinking everything’s going to be perfect, that you have a well-oiled machine. But as soon as you get into training camp, bodies go down, people get injured. Then you have to step back, sometimes it takes awhile to figure it out. That’s football, there are a lot of ups and downs. You have to keep fighting. Whoever’s fighting the hardest, whoever’s fighting longest, that’s going to be the winner.”