Many happy returns.

“Honestly,’’ Marken Michel is saying, searching for an explanation, “it’s hard to describe the feeling when you see a hole open up in front of you.

“It’s kinda like: ‘Alright, alright, where is it? Where is it? Oh, there it is.’

“Sometimes it takes a little patience, setting up the blocks, waiting for guys to get to their spots. You get so excited. You just don’t want to ruin anything; mess it up.

“Just feel what you feel and trust your eyes.”

Barely two minutes into the third quarter Tuesday, Michel felt that unmistakable little tingle of anticipation-turned-opportunity, latching onto a Ty Long offering at the Calgary Stampeders’ 38-yard stripe and taking a quick scan of the immediate horizon.

In front of him, BC Lions were being randomly scattered like orange-and-black 10-pins. A gap in punt coverage quickly became a seam that just as quickly became a superhighway as wide, as pedal-to-the-metal, as Germany’s Autobahn.

Seventy-two yards later, the 23-year-old University of Massachusetts wideout found himself celebrating what he thought was his first CFL touchdown.

But whoa. Steady on a moment.

Hankies (illegal interference) on the carpet.

Marken Michel finds the end zone (Photo by Mark Shannon)

“It hurts,’’ sighed Michel, looking for a more ambitious role after spending two and a half weeks on Calgary’s practice roster in 2016. “I can’t lie. It hurts. But so much has to go right in order to break a long return like that one.

“You trust your guys to make the blocks. And you know they will, next time.”

Ironing out the kinks. That’s what pre-season is designed for.

“I think there’s always a little bit of hesitation now when you break a long one,’’ reasoned Stamps special-teams coach Mark Kilam. “You always want to double check, just to be sure. No sense getting too excited, just in case.

“The reality is on most big returns, there’s always one block that could be considered, well . . . kinda questionable. That’s just the reality.

“So you do a quick little field scan. If there’s nothing lying there, you smile. If there is, you gotta bring it back.

“It’s too bad for Marken, but those are the little things we have to work on.”

Chalked-off big play or not, there was certainly no small measure of menace to the Calgary return game throughout the pre-season-opening 23-18 putdown of the Leos at McMahon.

Virtually every return – punt or kickoff – seemed to be on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

Terry Williams returns a kick in pre-season action (Photo by David Moll)

Terry Williams nearly busted one the distance on the opening kickoff of the second half, finally tracked down after ingesting 53 yards of real estate. Highly regarded Carleton U product Tunde Adeleke hauled two punts back for 48 yards, Jamal Nixon another two for 37 and A.J. Cruz a couple for an aggregate 26.

“A big return, it’s an all-around pride thing, for the whole team,’’ said the lickety-split Adeleke, a third-round draft pick who sizzled to a 4.58 clocking in the 40-yard dash at the Combine.

“They give everyone a lift.

“You have to understand that everyone on this field is, like, one of the best from where they came from. So you’re not always going to be the fastest guy anymore. At this level, it’s not just about depending on your physical attributes. The mental side is so important.

“You saw (Tuesday), there’s a lot of really, really talented people here returning kicks.”

Oh yes, in their first meaningful auditions, they all seemed capable of bringing the bling.

With last year’s firecracker, Roy Finch, expected to be game-planned more into the mechanism of Bo Levi Michell’s offence, the search for options for the return game continues Sunday up at Commonwealth Stadium.

“A lot of guys out here, pffffffft, are just extremely gifted,’’  praised Michel. “There’s a lot of natural ability involved in it but it’s also about working together as a unit. That’s what coach harps on. I think for a first pre-season game,That we definitely went out and did that, although we did have a couple minor mistakes.

“You’ve got to use the tools you’ve been given and continue to sharpen them.”

Tunde Adeleke during Tuesday’s  pre-season game against the Lions (Photo by David Moll)

What most pleased Kilam was the across-the-board dynamism of his return group.

“All those guys brought something to the table and that’s what we were looking for,’’ he said.

“We tried to put them in different situations to see how they’d respond. Jamal Nixon had a couple where he got vertical. Tunde looked good. Terry Williams had that extra gear. And Marken was unfortunate on the call-back.

“It’s good we can see what the standard is, then teach to the standard, move forward and hopefully keep those scores on the board.”

With one pre-season game left to show off their wares,  the Stamps will be looking for more of the same from their returners up north come Sunday. The harder the decisions, the better.

“I thought we had flash in our return game,’’ praised big boss Dave Dickenson, looking back to BC.

“We had four guys that really took advantage of their opportunities.

“As a unit, though, we took too many penalties. I think Mark Kilam addressed that. It’s tough to take a big return like that off the board. It’s a penalty we didn’t need to take. But it’s a penalty we earned.

“So we gotta be better.”