Rob Cote and Jon Cornish joined the Stamps together in 2007.

Until Cornish’s recent retirement, the two were tag-team partners in the Stamps backfield with Cote doing the blocking and Cornish doing the ball-carrying, particularly after the latter became the featured tailback during the 2011 season.

While Cote generally did his work quietly and without acclaim, Cornish won a plethora of awards including taking virtual ownership of the CFL’s Canadian Player of the Week award.

But an interesting bit of trivia is that it was Cote who first claimed that honour. During his CFL debut, still a few days away from his 21st birthday, Cote had a touchdown catch in the Stamps’ 2007 season-opener and was recognized by the league for his eye-catching coming-out party.

“It was a moment I don’t think I’ll ever forget,” Cote said years later when asked about his debut. “In the span of six months, I went from thinking I would never be in the CFL to signing a contract, to going to training camp to scoring a touchdown.”

In the fourth minute of the third quarter, Calgary had the ball at Hamilton’s eight-yard line. Henry Burris took the snap, dropped back and flipped the ball to Cote, who had gotten open at the goal-line. Cote made a nice adjustment to reach slightly behind him and make a sure-handed grab. The contact from Ticats defender Zeke Moreno was far too late as it only served to send Cote into a somersault from which he quickly sprang up to his feet and then celebrated the historic moment with a fist pump.

That game was long enough ago that it was broadcast by CBC with Chris Walby and Mark Lee doing the call.

“Second-and-four, ball at the eight,” was how Lee described the play. “Burris back to pass. Into the endzone . . . Touchdown, Rob Cote! The rookie has his first CFL touchdown!”

What made the occasion extra special is that Cote was a local product – proudly hailing from Cochrane – and that his father Cam had been a season-ticket holder for two decades prior to his son becoming a Stamp.

“You look down and your son’s on the bench,” Cam Cote told a reporter during his son’s rookies season. “It’s hard to get used to seeing that last name on the jersey.”

Rob made his Stamps debut that night but he was always a member of the Red and White at heart. He was a former member of the Stamps’ Safeway Quarterback Club and could barely contain his excitement as a youngster when Stamps QB Marcus Crandell came to Cochrane.

“I lived in my parents’ basement, and I went to university the first three years that I played,” he said. “So I was just basically a 20-year-old kid who had the coolest summer job in the world. That was pretty much the way I looked at it.

“My buddies were painting and they were doing landscaping or whatever — and I got to play football. So that’s how I approached it, and now it’s grown to a little more than that.”

And it all started that June 30, 2007, night.

“My first CFL game was very, very memorable,” he said. “Something I’ll never forget. It was very special to me and very unexpected to have the little amount of success that I did it my first game. For it to come that fast and in that fashion was something I’ll never forget.”