By Adam Donnelly

BC Lions 2018 Traning Camp underway in Kamloops

May 20, 2018 | 1:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s the beginning of an end of an era. Sunday in Kamloops the BC Lions opened their 2018 Training Camp, the final CFL training camp for Head Coach Wally Buono.

The Lions are a different looking club from previous years, and that change started in the front office where Ed Hervey took over from Buono as GM. The team also hired a new President, Rick LaLecheur and a host of new coaches including new Offensive Coordinator and QB’s coach Jarious Jackson, who won a pair of Grey Cups with the Lions in 2006 and 2011.

On the field, a host of additions have been made, including on the Offensive and Defensive lines. For a trio of the veteran Lions returning to Kamloops for camp, the changes throughout the organization have helped reinvigorate them heading into the new season.

“It’s good, new guys coming in,”  Veteran LB Solomon Elimimian says. “We’re excited. They’ve brought a lot of talent here, so [camp] is all about competing, everybody getting better. I like to say iron sharpens iron, so that’s how I look at things. We’ll be better for it.”

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BC had a tough season at the QB position in 2017. Jonathan Jennings went down with an early injury and never really regaining his 2016 form after returning. Travis Lulay is still recovering from a knee injury that ended his season last September. For both players, the first day of camp is an opportunity to hit the reset button and prepare for greater success in 2018.

“You know, I’m just going to be positive. That’s the biggest thing: believing in what we got, believing in who I am,” Jennings explains. “I know who I am, I’ve done it before, and I’m going to go out there and continue to go out there and do it. I’m excited about the opportunity that presents itself in 2018, and to wash away everything that’s happened in the last year. I’m excited about a clean slate and excited to get back to work.”

“I feel pretty good,” Lulay tells CFJC Today. “I’m not fully healed yet, so it’s kind of an ease-in approach for me, but just being out here and doing it again. You know, I missed the whole back half of the season last year, getting hurt in September you miss a lot of football, so just to be out and throwing balls and throwing routes and doing the drill work again instead of standing on the sidelines watching, that part was pretty fun.”

For Buono, Sunday kicked off his 46th CFL Training Camp. With so many new faces, he says he’s working hard to take it all in, learn as many names as he can, and look for that spark in some of the team’s newest additions.

“One of the first things I’m trying to do is if I see a number, I’m trying to find out who that person is,” Buono says. “Part of it is just learning the roster… the quicker you get up to speed the better it is.”

BC Lions Training Camp 2018 runs from now until June 7th, when the team will depart Kamloops. For the full camp schedule, click here.