“I would have liked to be given my chance” – Jonathan Sénécal

Jonathan Sénécal keeps a bitter taste of his passage to the Alouettes camp, at the end of which he was entrenched. With Radio-Canada Sports, the former quarter of the Carabins of the University of Montreal opened with frankness on this pivotal stage of his career.

The choice of seventh round to the last draft of the Canadian Football League (LCF) became the first Quebec quarter selected by the Montreal team from Marc-Olivier Brouillette in 2010. Male athlete of the year in the Canadian University Network (U Sports) in 2024 and champion of the Vanier Cup in 2023 with the title of player par excellence of the match, he led to the camp Cut a place with the team.

Sénécal saw field during preparatory matches, as are the other quarters of the team: Davis Alexander, McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Caleb Evans and James Morgan. He even became the very first carabin player to play a match of the LCF as a quarter.

After a few sequences, the ax fell: it was released.

I took a step back. I now want to move on, but I left with a bitter taste. It was a great experience, but I would have liked to be given my chance.

The posts of Alexander and Bethel-Thompson, nos 1 and 2, seemed to be locked, which left him in direct competition with Evans and Morgan for the title of second reservist. He believes that he did not have a real opportunity to demonstrate his potential. Sénécal played about a dozen games in preparatory matches, very little to prove its value, according to him.

I would have liked to be given more the opportunity to show what I was able to do, on the field, during the preseason matches. You can’t show what you can do in 12 games!he adds.

The director general of the Alouettes, Danny Maciocia, praised his potential, while highlighting the strong competition this year. Since I was DG, I have never seen such a good cuvée of a quarter. Jonathan was in a difficult situationhe said.

Sénécal understands the organization’s decision, but remains convinced that he deserved a better fate. It was my first year, it’s normal that everything was not perfecthe says. I was able to do as well as the others. It is certain that I do not have the experience of a veteran of the LCFbut for a first year, I was at their level.

Today a standalone player, he dismisses any possibility of return with the rifles even if he is entitled to a last year in Canadian university football.

Returning with the carabins has never been an option. I finished my baccalaureate in finance, and I will not return to university. I rather want to focus on my CFA This fall.

Even if he seriously prepares his transition to a career in finance, he does not intend to hang up the crampons. He continues to train at the Cepsum and keeps the hope of receiving a call from another team from the LCF.

For now, I haven’t heard any news, but I still hope. I would like a team to give me a real chance.

Lucid, he never let football take control of his life. He now wants to turn the page.

This is not the scenario I would have liked, but I am proud of what I have accomplished. If football returns in my life, so much the better. Otherwise, I advancehe concludes.

The case of Jonathan Sénécal also revives a wider reflection on Canadian quarters in the LCF. Unless you are going up, they do not count in the ratio of national players imposed on each team, a factor that does not promote their development. Before him, the birds had not drafted Canadian quarter from Ontario Brandon Bridge in 2015.