There’s a scene toward the end of the 1993 cult-classic football movie The Program where a star player is forced to watch his team play and win from home while recovering from a major leg injury.
It’s not a happy moment in the movie. It is a moment Saskatchewan Roughriders' defensive lineman Lake Korte-Moore can relate to.
The 25-year-old Ottawa native suffered the major first injury of his career -- a partial ACL and MCL tear to his knee -- in Week 18 against Edmonton last year, missing the remainder of the 2024 Canadian Football League season.
That included a win over the B.C. Lions in the Western Semi-Final and tough loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the West Final that ended Saskatchewan’s campaign and Korte-Moore’s hopes of returning that season.
“The first games I've ever missed ever playing football, so that was a tough thing for me to swallow near the end of the year,” Korte-Moore told voice of the Riders, Dave Thomas. “Then on top of that, I was trying to get back to possibly play in the Grey Cup and it hurt a lot because my goal is to get there. It hurt not being out there and helping the team in that West Final and watching it from home was really tough for me.”
Korte-Moore ended up heading back to Vancouver to watch the Grey Cup live and in person, which didn’t exactly help with his dashed ambitions.
“I hit a low and was like: 'I need to make sure that I don't feel like this ever again.' Get to that area where we're in it every year and we're pushing to be in it every year,” he said. “That was my realization with it, I wanted to be out there with my brothers playing and contributing." .”
Fortunately for Korte-Moore, as evidenced by his in-season recovery and lack of surgery, the injury wasn’t overly severe. In fact, he was confident it would be a matter of “tape it up and I’m fine.” But then the scans came back and revealed multiple ligament tears and the likelihood his season was over.
“I took that as a challenge. At first it's a slow process because you want to start doing stuff. You feel good, but you gotta let it heal before you can start ramping it up," Korte-Moore said.
“Our athletic trainers are amazing, the doctors and our facilities help so much with the underwater treadmill and everything. I was able to come back faster than expected and I was actually practicing before the West Final with the team, hoping to come back.”
Not having to miss even more time thanks to surgery was a turn of good fortune, even if it was still a tough process.
“I feel bad for those guys that have to go the whole year [after] a surgery," Korte-Moore said. “It's a process where you really start to miss the game and you start to miss the little things that are taken away from you in those moments.”
Fortunately, the injury appears to be a thing of the past, through the month of training camp and first preseason game, it’s been all systems go. In fact, Korte-Moore was one of the team leaders with three tackles and one sack in the team's 15-9 loss to Winnipeg last Saturday.
“I feel like this year I realized what it would be like to be an end playing in this league,” said the third-year veteran, who is currently billed at six-foot-four and 262 pounds. “I went back to that last year of college where I was lighter and I want to be able to contribute as much as I can, whether it's special teams or on the D-line. This year I came in lighter while trying to be stronger, being able to run and get after it.”
The ultimate goal is exactly the same as it was one year earlier -- find a way to get to and win the Grey Cup.
“Execute every play the best that I can, go out there and compete and really play this game not only for myself, but also for everyone in our room,” Korte-Moore said. “I think that's the big thing that Coach Mace preaches is we're all a family. If you do your job and work together as a unit, we'll be able to get the ultimate goal at the end of the year, which is hopefully hosting that Grey Cup.”
The Roughriders and Blue Bombers play their second game of the CFL pre-season at 7 p.m. Friday at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, and you can catch all the action on the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.
