Music: {allcanada} BOMBERS DEFENSIVE BACK JOHNSON WANTS GREY CUP RING TO KEEP

Thursday, November 24, 2011

{allcanada} BOMBERS DEFENSIVE BACK JOHNSON WANTS GREY CUP RING TO KEEP

VANCOUVER -- The last time Jovon Johnson got a Grey Cup ring he sold it on eBay. Now he wants one he will keep.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers all-star defensive back said Thursday he got $10,000 for the ring he was given as a non-playing member of the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2007.

He put it up for auction, at a starting price of $2,500, because he felt he hadn't earned it.

"Another reason I sold it was that going into the Grey Cup they put me on the practice roster, so going from a chance to make $16,000 to only making $500, that's a big difference," he said. "I needed some compensation for not playing in the game."

He doesn't recall who bought the ring.

"Some guy from Calgary, I think," he said. "It didn't matter who got it, I didn't feel I was part of the organization, and for them to put me on the practice roster going into the Grey Cup game, it was like a slap in the face to me. So I just felt no need for it.

"I have other rings. I won two Big 10 championships in college (with Iowa). Every other team I've been on I was a part of except for Saskatchewan."

Johnson will keep the ring if his Bombers upset the favoured B.C. Lions in the Grey Cup game Sunday at B.C. Place.

Johnson said things soured in Regina when he got into an argument during practice with Riders offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice, now his head coach in Winnipeg. He said the coach didn't like that he wasn't allowing receivers to make catches during offensive drills.

Johnson said now they get along fine.

"We're definitely on the same page now," added Johnson. "When he first got the job as head coach he called me up. We talked it over and left it there. We've grown so much more now that we're together and on the same page."