MATCHUP PROVIDES PLENTY OF REASONS TO WATCH GREY CUP
Stampeders seek redemption, while Argos hope to complete remarkable turnaround
It’s the East versus the West, each of them the CFL’s regularseason division champions.
It’s Bo Levi Mitchell versus Ricky Ray — the young gunslinger against the future hall of famer who looks more like an accountant than a professional quarterback.
It’s rookie-of-the-year candidate James Wilder Jr., the son of a former NFL player, versus the dynamic running back duo of Jerome Messam and Ottawa Redblacks castoff Roy Finch.
It’s Dave Dickenson versus Marc Trestman, coaches who bring much success to the table.
The Calgary Stampeders and Toronto Argonauts are a study in contrasts, so different, yet so very much the same.
While the local preference would have been heavily weighted toward having the Redblacks defend their Grey Cup championship of a year ago, we’re left with two teams with many storylines — the Stampeders looking for redemption, the Argos finishing off a season that 10 months ago looked hopeless.
The Stampeders were heavily favoured to win the Grey Cup last November. The oddsmakers said so, pretty well everyone outside of the nation’s capital said so. The 39-33 overtime win by the Redblacks, who won the East Division with an unimpressive 8-9-1 record, was a huge slap in the face for the Stampeders, who lost just twice all season (15-2-1).
“We’ve been in this position before,” Stampeders defensive back Brandon Smith said Sunday after his team hung on to beat the Edmonton Eskimos 32-28. “Last year, we thought we could just run over everybody. We didn’t finish the job, so we don’t want to do that this year.”
Stamps linebacker Alex Singleton said: “We’ve had 365 days, and we weren’t thinking about the Western Final. This is the week we’ve been working for. This is the week we’ve been talking about.”
The Argos, fresh off a 25-21 win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the East final, fired their GM, Jim Barker, in January, then coach Scott Milanovich quit. A month later, GM Jim Popp and coach Marc Trestman came aboard.
“These guys are really special,” Trestman said Sunday. “They’ve developed a brotherhood. A lot of the guys care more about their teammates than they care about themselves.”
It all starts with the 38-yearold Ray, whose 5,546 passing yards in the regular season included a run of 330, 341, 362, 423 and 341 passing yards in the final five games of the regular season. On Sunday, he had 266 yards versus the Roughriders.
“With everything that was on the line (Sunday), this (win) was pretty special,” Ray said.
The Stamps have a quarterback stud of their own in the 27-yearold Mitchell. They also have 255-pound Messam, who ran over defenders for 1,016 yards during the regular season, and the speedy, elusive Finch, who had 81 yards on four carries Sunday.
The Argos have Wilder Jr., whose dad played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and he averaged 7.1 yards per touch in 2017 — running for 872 yards on 122 carries. He also caught 51 passes.
The predictions will be plenty, but there’s one certainty: The Grey Cup is always special.