Week two of the CFL schedule brought a few surprises, but one huge lesson, the final score is never official until the final whistle sounds.
But to start the review off there was the Ricky and Charles show, which was decidedly one, sided to the favor of Mr. Roberts. The Winnipeg Blue Bomber running back had a night to showcase the numbers as he rushed 32 times for 133 yards and one TD, to lead the Bombers onto victory over The Argos. The much watched over Ricky Williams had a rather light night as the Argos only gave him the ball eight times for 14 yards. Part of the strategy with Williams perhaps is the attention that he draws, the defence is so keyed in on his running that they double and sometimes triple fill the running holes. This of course should be leaving somebody uncovered, but on Friday the Argos couldn’t take advantage of that aspect of the Williams experience. The Bomber’s showed some good signs of progress for Coach Berry, who watched them, implode in last week’s opener against Montreal. This time they managed to carry the play through the half time and into the third and fourth quarters. The Bombers persevered to a 16-9 victory powered off the foot of Troy Westwood and the feet of Roberts. Noel Prefontaine accounted for all 9 of the Argo points, the offence sputtering as they try to adjust to a season start with Damon Allen.
Two games in and the season is already starting to seem long for the Hamilton Tiger Cats, for the second week in a row the Cats ended their sixty minutes of play without a victory, taking it on the chin 32-14 at the hands of Anthony Calvillo who completed 23 of 40 passes for 303 yards and two touchdown passes. Hamilton who have entered the 2006 season with high hopes have stumbled in their first two games, a frustrating start for Jason Maas who joined the Cats in the off season considered the missing ingredient for a Hamilton run for the Grey Cup, he’s still trying to get his footing with the Ti Cat offence. Montreal takes the week off with their next game to take place July 6th against the same Tiger Cats, who may or may not be in a better situation, they will either be 2-1 or 0-3 when they catch up with their friends from Montreal again. The Cats play Calgary this week on Thursday night, it’s still early but suddenly the Cats are heading into must win territory, if for not other reason than to build a little confidence inside that Tiger Cat dressing room and take some pressure off of head coach Greg Marshall.
Of course, a team hoping to sidetrack those plans is the Calgary Stampeders who just came off of a disappointing loss to the Edmonton Eskimos. The Stamps appeared to be ready to put the Eskimos away with a late game drive at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday night, only to see the chance slip away with a Shannon Garrett interception of a Henry Burris pass, this after the Stamps had marched down the field to put a scare into the over 40,000 in the stands. The game was filled with ebbs and flows with long drives and heart stopping action broken up by periods of sloppy play and untimely errors. Always a battle between to the two provincial rivals, it once again went down to the wire to keep everyone on the edge of their seat. The Stamps will try to rebound against Hamilton on Thursday while the Eskies will head for Winnipeg and a Canada Day match up with the Bombers.
The final game of week two was your typical barn burner finish for a CFL game as Dave Dickenson and Kerry Joseph exchanged long drives, long bombs and touchdown marches to set up a wild finish to the final game of the week. By the time the dust settled on the prairies the Lions had watched in shock as the Riders battled back to claim two points with a 32-34 victory at the newly named Mosaic Stadium. In the space of seventeen seconds, the Riders had gone from trailing to victory with 14 points in back to back fashion. Kerry Joseph began the march to victory with a pass to Jamel Richardson who took a short hitch pass from Joseph and rambled 49 yards for a touchdown, his remarkable run followed 17 seconds later by an interception and TD return by Eddie Davis. Dickenson had started this one the way he had left off at BC Place last season as he took the Lions down the field for a touchdown on their first possession. He followed that up later in the game with two more touchdown passes, but it was the running game that caused the Lions troubles as they just couldn’t generate any yardage nor control the flow of the game on the run. The win was a huge one for Danny Barrett, the Riders coach is certainly under the microscope this season as Rider fans are hoping for big things, last weeks embarrassment at BC Place didn’t do much to calm the fans down, winning the follow up game, most likely will buy him and GM Roy Shivers a bit of time as the folks in Riderville wait to see how things will shake out through the year. BC gets back to work on Friday night when the Argos come to town, a return to his former team by Argo QB Spurgen Wynn, who spent a number of years with the Leos before his one year of purgatory in Winnipeg. The Lions will be an ornery bunch having felt like they let a win get away in Regina last week, so it may not be happy reunion for Wynn and his Argos.
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