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Everyone we brought to Vegas, we brought to Vegas for a reason. Jason Maas

Maas didn’t share any names in attendance, adding it will be up to the new recruits to make a name for themselves once in Edmonton.

“You’ll hear about them when training camp starts because right now we’re still evaluating everyone we’re going to be bringing up,” said Maas, whose roster sat at 54 coming into mini-camp – well under the 75 allowed. “Once we finalize our roster, it will get set for May 27 and 28 when we start, and a lot of those (new) names will be guys we brought from this camp.

“Everyone we brought to Vegas, we brought to Vegas for a reason.”

But on-field ability was only part of the equation, as coaches also looked at how they fit in away from the field.

“That’s part of the reason we have the setting that we do, bringing guys from workouts where you’re just looking at skill at that point and not paying much mind to anything else,” Maas said. “But you don’t get a good feel about people until you actually have them in a classroom setting, you’re teaching them and holding them accountable for things over a number of days and practices.

“The coaches get to see what kind of learning capacity they have, how they fit into a team atmosphere. You still have to run, catch and tackle, but the type of person you are and you fit into what we do, scheme-wise and character-wise, that also factors in.”

Hockey haven

CFL preseason may be the farthest thing from the minds of Edmonton sports fans here in the middle of a long-awaited Oilers’ run through their first NHL playoffs since 2006, but the atmosphere is nothing new to Maas, who got his start in the league as an Eskimos quarterback in 2000.