Different, yet the same

By Arash Madani, Special to CW

All Jackson Tachinski has known has flipped upside down. It’s all different. He’s gone from throwing it to catching it; has parked the shoulder pads for sticky gloves. Spring and summers are now his football season. On Saturdays, now no longer the face of the Bisons football program, Manitoba’s former quarterback is on another mission: doing his part to win Canada an Olympic gold medal. As a receiver.

The helmet is retired, for now. So are aspirations to play pro football in the CFL. Tachinski is all-in on flag football. He’s home, fresh off a run with the national team at the IFAF World Championships in Düsseldorf, where Canada won reached the medal podium and punched its ticket to LA 2028.

“Winning bronze is cool,” Tachinski says. “But we want to win gold.”

His Manitoba Bisons, where he quarterbacked the last three seasons, have moved on in the lifecycle that is university football. The successor in Winnipeg, Cole Anseeuw, is into the gauntlet of an unforgiving Canada West schedule. A week after lighting up Saskatchewan for 248 yards and three touchdowns in a three-score win, Anseeuw was humbled against Regina, throwing for 112 yards and a pick.

Autumns are for football, just not anymore for Tachinski. Tackle has given way to flag. Quarterbacking for pass catching. All those hours spent in the classroom gaining an understanding of Canada’s food supply chain, from producer to consumer, has him ditching the books for job interviews in the Agribusiness field – his major at U of M.

But ask anyone around Team Canada or the Bisons of what hasn’t changed.

“Jackson,” says national flag head coach Paul LaPolice, “is the ultimate competitor.”

All Tachinski has ever wanted to do is compete, and win. Never more evident than the last three years as the Bisons starter. In 2024, he led Manitoba to that 7-1 season and was named Canada West Player of the Year. Six-foot-four, 215 pounds, built to perform. Early in his university days, he went out for the Bisons basketball program after cutting down the nets in high school.

“I’m an athletic guy,” Tachinski says.

The Bisons during those seasons went as their quarterback took them. When he graduated, no pro team took a look at him at his natural position. Auditioned twice with Edmonton as a receiver, then with the Blue Bombers at the end of training camp in June. When that didn’t work out, Tachinski immediately turned the page. Accepted an offer from LaPolice to join the national team program and went all-in. A training camp in Winnipeg, then to San Diego a few times for more off-season team activities. A trip to Montreal. The tune-up for worlds in China and then on to Germany for the clincher into the Olympics and the bronze medal run.

“This whole summer, we were training with one goal in mind,” says Tachinski. “We knew we had to play our best and show the world we can do it.”

The faces of the Canadian flag roster are accomplished tackle players: Michael O’Connor quarterbacked UBC to a Vanier Cup title before a CFL career where no position change was required; Antony Auclair left Université Laval for Tampa Bay and caught balls from Tom Brady on the way to a Super Bowl, lining up alongside Rob Gronkowski as tight end. Tachinski knew there was work to do.

Where he had a bit of an edge was an upbringing in the flag world. From Grade 4 until high school graduation, Jackson played both brands of football. But it’s one thing to play on community fields, another to contribute at the world championships.

“It’s been a big process,” Tachinski says. “There have been a bunch of new skills to get used to. Getting back into moving my hips, and swivel, and protect those flags.”

The work is significant. He had played all of one year of receiver in community football. Besides that, quarterback the rest of the way. So, there’s re-learning proper footwork off the line; he’s running route after route to familiarize himself with how to bend, when to break, how to cut, then to make the grab. And don’t forget that part – catching a lot of balls, be it from O’Connor or off a jugs machine or from whomever he can find to join him on a field to go work.

“It’s a lot of reps, it’s lots of sprinting and route running,” Tachinski says. “You’ve got to be creative, but it’s a challenge I’ve accepted and I can feel myself getting better.

Once a quarterback, always a quarterback, and now lining up as a receiver, he knows what O’Connor is seeing – and looking for. What Tachinski has now noticed is he can spot a zone coverage before most. When Jackson breaks out of the huddle, he focuses on what the cornerback and halfback are doing on his side of the field. If the corner is low, and the half is bailing high, it’ll be a cut coverage. Sometimes defenses try to disguise and invert it, which means Tachinski will cut to the outside – away from the halfback.

If it sounds complicated, it’s a walk in the park compared to what he and O’Connor are used to. In flag, they’ll only see five or six defensive coverages. It’s about identifying zones, inverts and triangles.

“I don’t have to account for a front-seven and blitzes,” Tachinski says with a sly grin.

That’s different, it’s all different. Less than two years remain until LA 2028, where this new frontier, this different version of football, will be part of the Summer Olympic Games. Where, while bronze may be cool, the mission is gold.

“We are all passionate about the sport and the game and where we want to take this,” says Tachinski. “To be part of a new sport in the Olympics? We know the magnitude of the moment. It’s a lot of people’s first introduction to flag and it can make such an impact.”

It may all be different. But Jackson Tachinski still has a chance to compete and to win.

“And, really, that is all I want,” he says. “That’s all that matters.”

About the Author

Well known to sports fans across Canada, Arash Madani is a national sports broadcaster who has travelled the world covering some of the biggest events in sport. Canada West is proud to welcome Arash as a contributor to its football coverage team for the 2026 season.

About Canada West:

Canada West has been Building Champions Since 1919. As the leading university athletic conference in the country, Canada West is home to student-athletes that excel in the classroom and their communities. The conference is comprised of 18 member institutions spanning from Victoria to Winnipeg, with over 3,200 student-athletes competing across 14 sports. Canada West’s mission is to train leaders and build champions by providing leadership in the delivery, regulation, and promotion of university level high performance sports programs throughout western Canada.