Blue Bombers vs Harris and Argos a Grey Cup match made in heaven
If you’d been asked going into the CFL season to peg the juiciest championship matchup possible, at least one with a Winnipeg bent, you may well have chosen the one we’ve got.
The 109th Grey Cup in Regina will feature the two-time defending champion Winnipeg Blue Bombers against Andrew Harris and the Toronto Argonauts.
The same Andrew Harris who unceremoniously cut ties with his hometown team after feeling unwanted and disrespected last winter.
The same Andrew Harris who, when he plays with a chip on his shoulder, finds another level, like he did in heaving the Bombers on his back in the 2019 Grey Cup.
“I’m sure he’s going to be fired up,” Bombers receiver Nic Demski said after Winnipeg punched its ticket to the title game with a uneven, 2820, home-field win over the B.C. Lions in Sunday’s West Final. “I’m sure he’s going to have some vengeance on his shoulders. And I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Harris was watching the Bombers get past the Lions from his Toronto home, and when it was over I asked him for one word on the matchup.
“Giddy up!” was his texted reply, followed by an emoji face with steam coming from its nostrils.
This story will write itself over the next week.
“It’s probably going to dominate,” Bombers head coach Mike O’shea acknowledged. “And anything that can draw interest to our league, especially with that franchise, is a positive.”
Harris was supposed to ride off into the sunset as a Bomber, after leading the franchise’s turnaround when he arrived as a free agent from B.C. in 2016.
Injuries plagued him last season, though. And when he became a free agent, the Bombers didn’t make him a priority, signing running backs Brady Oliveira and Johnny Augustine while ignoring his calls for some clarity on his own status.
He finally received a lastditch offer.
“It was definitely a big insult,” he told The Sun at the time. “I just wish they had been more transparent. Instead of stringing me along and then giving me this lastditch offer out of nowhere. Disrespectful. I wanted to end my career here. I wanted to try to get a third Grey Cup.”
Instead, he signed as a free agent with Toronto, while the Bombers continued their quest for the three-peat behind the running of another Winnipegger, Brady Oliveira, like Harris and Demski, a product of Oak Park High School.
The King, the Prince and the Duke, Willie Jefferson dubbed the three locals last season.
The Winnipeg ground attack has barely skipped a beat with the Duke replacing the King.
In fact, Oliveira, in his first career playoff start, was the star of the show in the win over B.C., barging and churning his way for 130 yards on 20 carries, as the Winnipeg passing game ground to a halt in the second half.
“Their guy was on a mission,” is how Lions head coach Rick Campbell described it.
That mission: to play a key role in bringing another Grey Cup to his home town. Just as Harris did in 2019 and again last season.
“It’s going to be cool,” Oliveira said of the face-toface matchup. “He taught me so much … I was critically watching him to see if I could pick things out of his game and apply them to my game. He was a huge part of getting me to where I am today.”
Oliveira, 25, is just getting started.
Sunday, the 35-year-old Harris gets a chance to put a final stamp on a Hall of Fame career — although we probably shouldn’t assume it’s his last hurrah — while at the same time putting the boots to his old team.
“He has had a chip on his shoulder his whole career,” Bombers linebacker Adam Bighill said. “He’s got a great story … and he surprised a lot of people to (become) one of the best football players in this league. So you can never count a guy out like that.”
This looked like an impossible matchup when Harris tore a pectoral muscle midway through the season.
He beat the odds and returned for last Sunday’s East final, scoring a touchdown on his first carry in months.
“That sounds like Andrew to me,” Demski said.
It seems there’s still enough fuel in his tank for at least one more big game.
It’s hard to imagine him being the ground-churning machine that made him the 2019 Grey Cup’s most valuable player and most valuable Canadian, the first player in league history to win both awards.
“I’ve competed against Andrew a handful of times in my career,” Bighill said. “And it’s going to be pretty awesome going up against him in the Grey Cup. He’s the ultimate competitor.”
Harris said he got past his negative feelings towards the Bombers, even shrugging off some friction between him and O’shea in that last season, acknowledging he was going through some personal turmoil and wasn’t as committed as he could have been.
But his old coach knows what to expect next Sunday.
“The best,” O’shea said. “Always.”