Arden Zwelling
CFL.ca

Shawn Gore showed up a bit late for practice with the BC Lions this week. Like three months late.
 
But ask any of the Lions coaching staff and they’ll tell you that it’s okay — the rookie has a pretty good reason to be tardy.
 
Gore spent the past 12 weeks in training camp with the Green Bay Packers, one of the few Canadians competing for a roster spot in the world’s biggest professional football league.
 
He was cut on the second last day of camp. 72 hours, a new contract and a flight to Montreal later, Gore was a member of the BC Lions.
 
“I’ve been pretty much living in the moment wherever I’m at,” a road-weary Gore said in Vancouver after finishing his second practice with his new team. “But being with the Lions has been great. They’ve been very welcoming and I can’t wait to play with them and contribute.”
 
The Lions can’t wait either.
 
After selecting Gore with their second round pick, 10th overall, in the 2010 entry draft, Lions brass have been sitting on their thumbs, waiting to see if the third wide receiver off the board was ever going to actually play football in British Columbia.
 
Well, he’s here now. And he’s ready to work.
 
“I want to make a statement,” Gore said. “I know that because I’m new here, if I want to play and I want to make an impact on offence and special teams I have to work harder. That’s what I’m going to do because I want to make an impact.”
 
Gore is officially on the practice roster as of Thursday, but that could change ahead of the Lions’ Saturday afternoon matchup with the Toronto Argonauts. And if he does crack the 46-man roster, how much Gore will play is also up in the air.
 
He’s 11 weeks and a full training camp behind on learning the Lions’ systems and playbook, not to mention missing the cohesiveness and chemistry between teammates that’s built over a long CFL season.
 
He’s never worked with any of the Lions coaches and knows just a handful of the players from his days in the CIS.
 
The Toronto native, it would seem, has all the cards stacked up against him.
 
But ask Gore about that and he’ll tell you he’s going to treat this challenge just like every other one in his career. He plans to muscle his way onto this team.
 
 “I’m definitely behind. It just means I have to study more, read the playbook more and work harder in practice,” Gore said. “I’m new here and I have something to prove.
 
“I’m going to be going very hard in practice. I might end up being that guy that some of the players get annoyed by because he’s doing everything hard and going all out.”
 
That tireless work ethic and motivation is a carryover from Gore’s time at the uber-competitive Packers training camp.
 
The six-foot, 200-pounder dressed for three pre-season games with Green Bay, hauling in a pair of passes for 23 yards.
 
Gore said he felt he performed well at the Packers camp but always managed to keep his expectations in check. After all, it’s tough to crack the roster of a preseason super bowl favourite that is returning all five of its receivers from 2009.
 
“It was a really tough competition at the receiver position. I honestly believe it’s one of the best receiving corps in the league,” Gore said. “The team has a lot of great athletes and veterans that we were competing with. So it was a hard team to crack.”
 
Certainly it was a far cry from his younger days, playing football in north Toronto at Newtonbrook Secondary School and with the Metro Toronto Wild Cats before moving East to attend Bishop’s University and play for the Gaiters.
 
It was at Bishop’s, however, that Gore really put himself on the football map, pulling in 72 passes for 1,172 yards and seven touchdowns over 29 games.
 
He led the team in 2009 with 32 catches for 496 yards and five touchdowns and proved he could rise to the occasion in big games when he came through with 114 yards on seven catches in the Gaiters’ 40-15 playoff loss to the University of Montreal.
 
Playing under Bishop’s head coach Leroy Blugh — a 15-year CFL veteran who won two Grey Cups and the 1996 Most Outstanding Canadian Award —  Gore learned that in order to succeed on a professional level, you need to have an unworldly work ethic.
 
“At Bishop’s I learned a lot about dedication. Coach Blugh taught me how to come in and work hard every day,” Gore said. “From the weight room to the practice field to the meeting room — you have to work strong every day.”
 
Now, Gore joins a normally-strong Lions team that is going through a very abnormal season.
 
With a 2-7 record, the Lions are tied for last place in the league. A full four games back of the second place Saskatchewan Roughriders, the team is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 1996.
 
A 38-17 win over the East division leading Alouettes in Montreal last weekend — with Gore watching from the sidelines — was promising though.
 
The arrival of the talented Gore gives even more reason for optimism as head coach Wally Buono looks for anything to spark his tepid offence which ranks last in the league with just 326.8 yards per game.
 
“I want to bring a new energy in practice,” Gore said. “I know they’re expecting me to be able to perform and be a player that can make an impact in games. That’s exactly what I want to do.”
 
A fresh offensive target for quarterbacks Casey Printers and Travis Lulay will be much appreciated considering the team has picked up just 248.9 yards of passing per game in 2010 — good for second last in the league. The Lions also have the worst completion rating of the CFL’s eight teams, converting on just 55.2% of their passes.
 
Of course, how long it takes Gore to assimilate himself to life with the Lions will play a big part in how regularly he sees the field. Luckily for him, he has one big thing in common with his new receiver colleagues — they’re all kids.
 
Before Gore even showed up the Lions had four wide outs — Emmanuel Arceneaux, Steven Black, Akeem Foster and fullback turned wide receiver Andrew Harris — who are under the age of 24.
 
Now Gore, who turned 23 in April, makes a boyish group even younger. The youth movement obviously bodes well for the future, but what the bunch can achieve today remains to be seen.
 
“I think if we can all stay here and keep improving and making plays it would be a great thing,” Gore said. “There’s a great future here.”