Training camp in any sport is intended to be a grueling and stressful process. Training camp on a professional football team represents the peak of athletic tension outside of a championship game. Two weeks of minimal sleep, intense expectations, and endless questioning.

This test of will and character is intended to reveal who the true player is to everyone involved in the evaluation process to aid in determining a player’s mental fortitude. A measure of mental strength, which history tells us will present itself in crunch time to win big games and battle back from large deficits in game score or season wins.

Coaches used to rely on two-a-day practices and several periods of intense pad clashing to weather their prospective employees. This method of practice, preparation, and evaluation is no longer viable at any level of football, let alone the CFL where 300-pound behemoths like offensive lineman Peter Dyakowski and defensive tackle Ted Laurent create collisions worthy of a Richter scale measurement.

We live in a new era of football. One where brain injuries and their lingering cause-effect relationship are more understood than ever. As a result, practice structures and training camp schedules have evolved to include fewer contact periods and less time spent on the field. While some coaches might be ingrained in their ways of traditional team analysis, Hamilton Tiger-Cats head coach Kent Austin agrees with the transitional phase football finds itself embracing.

“As far as two-a-days and padded practices - those types of things, I don't really believe that two long padded practices in a given day is appropriate for football anymore. I don't believe the body is made for that.”

The acceptance of the new reality has been vocally apparent through Tiger-Cats training camp. Austin and his staff can be heard routinely screaming at the top of their lungs for players to “stay up.” Urging aggressive and violently striking defensive backs and linebackers to play tag and hold up a ball carrier is about as effective as shaking a can of pop for fifty weeks and asking it not to explode when opened over a two week period. Not likely to go well.

On day two of training camp Angelo Mosca stopped by to take in the 2015 edition of the club. The former professional wrestler and Tiger-Cats legend must sometimes wonder if he is watching the same sport he won the Grey Cup playing in 1963 as a Tiger-Cat.

Pro football training camps and the stories that accompany them are sewn into the fabric of football culture. Ask any CFL alumni their favourite training camp tale and you’ll be sure to hear a long-winded war story more than worthy of the time invested in hearing it. The basis of these stories is the fire and brimstone moments that created the men we respect so much as pioneers and carriers of the CFL torch in a previous generation.

Unfortunately, these are the same legendary stories that have occasionally come to a tragic conclusion. In Remember The Titans, Denzel Washington’s character, hard-nosed Virginia football coach Herman Boone, famously responds to a player’s request for water with a statement typical of old school football ideology.

“A water break? Water is for cowards. Water makes you weak. Water is for washing blood off that uniform and you don't get no blood on my uniform, boy you must be outside your mind! We are going to do up-downs, until Blue is no longer tired, and thirsty.”

That same water could have helped keep Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle Korey Stringer alive when he passed away during Vikings training camp in 2001 from complications related to heat stroke. Stringer’s passing created the stinging shock and awareness unfortunately required by most leagues in order to change standard operating procedures. In 2002, the NFL announced initiatives to ask teams to train in light-coloured uniforms, use lighter equipment, and mandate shade breaks with constant water available.

It all seems commonplace now, but the game has changed a great amount away from the bright lights of Sunday afternoons.

The question now becomes how do coaches carve character into young men in order to teach them what it truly means to be a professional football player without breaking responsible, new age league mandates. For the Tiger-Cats, the answer is to turn up the intensity without the constant contact and make the most of every rep.

Linebacker coach and Special Teams Coordinator Jeff Reinebold is just another in a long line of Ticats bench men accepting the new era of football preparation and the challenges that come with it. “It’s a different time now. I've been in this business for almost 30 years, one of the things that Kent has done a tremendous job of here is put together a staff that loves to compete.”

Reinebold made the vetted statement after a raucous Thursday practice that saw veteran receiver Bakari Grant voice his frustration with what he perceived to be defenders taking liberties with his offensive teammates. Perhaps Grant being the first to vocalize his frustration is a positive step for a team that has been largely conflict free six days into training camp.

“Every football team is a reflection of their coaches,” said the surf and sand loving Reinebold. Orlondo Steinauer is ultra-competitive, Deke (defensive line coach Dennis McPhee) is ultra-competitive, Tommy (Condell) is, Allan Rudolph is; but it never gets personal, the best teams practice that way.”

Reinebold acknowledged the new standards can be restrictive but there are new and evolving ways to improve your team. “The Seattle Seahawks, their practices are the most competitive I've ever seen - everything counts; and the coaches are loud and their frankly talking trash to each other but it never gets personal. There is a difference between that rift that can come between offence and defence and a football team that just loves to compete.”

Under a new era of training camp guidelines, Austin and his staff have evolved. They are wise to do so, any veteran of the old school practice formats could tell you in football you either evolve or die. For many that’s actually the first sentence in their favourite war story.

Marshall Ferguson, a former McMaster quarterback, covers the Tiger-Cats for Classic Hits 1150 CKOC in Hamilton - the future home of TSN Radio 1150. His CFL blogs and podcasts can be read and heard weekly on TSN.ca.