On a regular basis, Riderville.com will profile Saskatchewan Roughriders players as they prepare for the 2024 season. Today, we focus on centre Peter Godber, who recently completed his first season with the Green and White.
One of Peter Godber’s “welcome to Saskatchewan” moments included a dog pause.
One fine day, Godber and his girlfriend (Hailey Petrunia) took their beloved growler, Sunday, to a Regina dog park.
Even though Godber was a first-year Saskatchewan Roughrider in 2023, he was instantly recognizable by members of the CFL team’s fervent fan base.
So, naturally, the amiable centre struck up a conversation with a lady whose hound was also going for a run.
“Her son was playing flag football right next to the dog park, so she asked me if I could go speak to the team,” Godber recalls. “It was all impromptu, but I ended up speaking to the football team. The next week, I spoke to the other team.”
And loved every minute of it.
That is one reason why Godber plans to immerse himself in community endeavours during the off-season.
“Outside of football and outside of my training, I want to be in the community,” he says. “I started doing that before I left (Regina after the 2023 CFL season).
“In the off-season, I’ll be back and forth. My family’s in Toronto, my girlfriend’s family is in Vancouver, and I want to be in the community in Regina.
“I’ve joined the Roughriders’ community team for the off-season. I’ve already started with Rider Reading and I’m getting trained in the Win with Wellness program.”
That is a continuation of the community spirit Godber demonstrated while he was a member of the B.C. Lions’ organization from 2018 to 2022.
“For the last four years, I had worked with the Lions’ off-season program and we got to go around the province and send really strong, positive messages to children,” he says. “Now I want to do the same with the Riders.”
That was the objective when he signed with Saskatchewan as a free agent last February, committing to the team for two years.
Another factor was a desire to immerse himself in Rider Nation, which he had previously experienced from the perspective of an opposing player.
“Playing in Saskatchewan exceeded my expectations in a lot of ways,” he says.
“You envision the fans on game day — and they were awesome this year. You envision the game-day atmosphere at the stadium. You kind of expect that. But what I didn’t expect is you go to the grocery store or you go to the park and you strike up conversations.
“Fans will tell you their take on the team and what needs to happen. They’re just so involved in the team. I guess I didn’t necessarily expect that so, in that way, it exceeded my expectations.
“Everyone was super-happy to talk to me. By the end of the year, maybe they weren’t as happy, but they definitely told you their opinion, good or bad.
“I was surprised by how many people wear Riders gear on a day-to-day basis. It’s pretty cool. I’ve never seen that before, living in Toronto or Vancouver, so it was awesome.”
Although the Roughriders missed the 2023 CFL playoffs, it was a successful season for Godber from an individual standpoint.
According to player ratings issued by Pro Football Focus, Godber was the Roughriders’ top-rated offensive lineman and, on top of that, he graded out as No. 1 among the league’s starting centres.
Now he looks forward to the start of Corey Mace’s CFL Head Coaching career.
Mace, who spent the past two seasons as the Toronto Argonauts’ Defensive Co-ordinator, was introduced as the Roughriders’ field boss on Nov. 30.
“I watched the press conference that he did and I was very fired-up and excited,” Godber says.
“The last two years, I’ve had a great amount of respect for him while playing against Toronto’s defence.
“As a centre, you watch a lot of film, and you’re kind of organizing the line and who we’re blocking and how to block them. I always knew that when we played Toronto, there were certain things we had to prepare for.
“Their players played very hard and they were part of a great defence with great schemes. I have a lot of respect for him as a coach.
“Seeing that press conference and the fact that he is Canadian, that’s really, really cool to me as a Canadian kid.”
