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“We have to check that there are not too many people around. You can only be in groups of two people outside right now in Cologne,” he said Wednesday night from his apartment. “We have to talk to the people. If they are not going to split up, they have to pay a fine of 200 Euros.”

Breidenbach is an intimidating 6-foot-5, 285-pounder with massive, tattoo-covered biceps. Though he has had to write a couple of tickets to unhappy recipients, he hasn’t met much more than casual resistance to his distancing directives.

“I’m a big person. I don’t think anyone wants to be rude to me,” he says.

Breidenbach appreciates having a job at a time when so many others are unemployed, but he does find the whole exercise particularly frustrating, given the enormity of what’s at stake.

“A lot of people are outside right now,” he says. “It seems a little bit strange because everything is closed, but still a lot of people are outside. I don’t know how it’s going to be for the next couple of weeks. I hope it will be a lot quieter but I don’t think so. A lot of people really don’t recognize what’s going on or they really don’t care. Everybody has grandparents and parents. Everybody can get sick. I don’t get it. That’s totally stupid, in my eyes.”

The pandemic has dramatically altered daily life in Germany, just as it has for the rest of the planet. It has also delayed his new dream of a career in the CFL, but the 30-year-old, who took up football just eight years ago, is willing to work out in his apartment for as long as it takes to get another opportunity in Canada, even if that’s a year from now. And he isn’t worried that a cancelled CFL season would be particularly debilitating for him because of his age.