The two combatants in Sunday’s National championship game won’t be looking to the history books for any incentive for the Big Game. Chris Cariou of the Winnipeg Free Press has traced the playoff times of the Leos since they arrived in the CFL back in 1954.
While they have had some pretty remarkable teams over the years, at times the Lions have stumbled when the ultimate prize was on the line, the most recent stumble coming back in 2004 with a 27-19 loss to the Toronto Argonauts. Over the course of their eight Grey Cup appearances the Lions have split appearances evenly with four wins and four losses. This makes Sunday’s match up the chance to move ahead in the won loss column.
As for the Alouettes, just facing the Lions alone is enough to keep them from any late night reading of the CFL almanac. The CBC has worked out the book on the Als and since 2002 the Lions have beaten the Alouettes eight out of nine times, the ninth game a one point loss back in 2005. To say that the Lions have had the Als number would be an understatement.
When it comes time to hand out Grey Cups the Als have been in a bit of a slump as well, the most recent occasion of the red white and blue hoisting Lord Grey’s Mug back in 2002. Since then they’ve been to two more dances but came up short each time.
No doubt both teams will be living in the now as they saying and won’t be consulting the ancient books of CFL Grey Cup history, instead focusing on the task at hand and a chance to redefine their legacies in the books of the CFL.
Historically Lions struggle in CFL's biggest game
Wed Nov 15 2006
By Chris Cariou
VANCOUVER -- The B.C. Lions are the CFL's Johnny-come-lately, but they haven't been all that Johnny-be-good.
While Vancouver has been the host city for the Western Final each of the last three seasons since Wally Buono took the reins as coach and the Lions have advanced to the Western Conference championship five out of the last eight years, the youngest of the eight CFL clubs has the worst winning playoff record of all CFL teams.
Heading into last Sunday's Western Final at B.C. Place Stadium, where the Lions beat up the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-18 to advance to their ninth Grey Cup game, B.C. was 16-23 in 39 playoff games since they entered the league in 1954 for a CFL worst .410 winning percentage.
The Edmonton Eskimos, for example, are tops at .576 and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers second at .551, although the Lions are 4-4 in the Grey Cup appearances they have made.
So when Lions' president/CEO Bobby Ackles talks about the 94th Grey Cup game at Canad Inns Stadium being very important for the franchise, you can understand why. The club has been very strong for the past several seasons but comparatively, Vancouverites have more often suffered over the team's record.
From that 1-15 mark in the first season in 1954 under Annis Stukus, the club suffered mostly in futility until 10 years later in 1964 when they won their first Grey Cup under the likes of quarterback Joe Kapp, running back Willie Fleming and Bill Munsey, a 34-24 win over Hamilton, the team they had lost to in the championship a year earlier.
But then hard times would return again and the Lions didn't get back to the Grey Cup game until 1983, the rookie season for Don Matthews as a head coach in the CFL. B.C., with quarterback Roy Dewalt and wide receiver Mervyn Fernandez, scored a league high 477 points that season and intercepted 42 passes, but fell to Toronto in the title tilt.
Matthews though continued to build the team and posted a club record 13-3 campaign in 1985, crushing the Tiger-Cats 37-17 in the Grey Cup that year after clobbering the Bombers 42-22 in the Western Final. The Bombers returned the final in B.C.'s next Grey Cup appearance in 1988, winning 22-21.
B.C. didn't get back to the CFL's title game until 1994 under the guidance of Dave Ritchie, who would eventually become the Blue Bombers' head coach. Ritchie had helped turn around a 3-15 squad in 1992 into a 10-8 outfit in 1993. In 1994, the year the CFL expanded into the U.S., the Lions beat the Baltimore Stallions 26-23 for their third Grey Cup.
There were more lean years ahead until Steve Buratto was elevated to head coach following the departure of Doug Mohns in 2000. The Lions finished 8-10-1 but upset both Edmonton and Calgary in the western playoffs before knocking off Montreal 28-26 for their fourth Cup win, the first sub-.500 CFL team to ever do so.
Buono led the Lions to a 13-5 record in 2004 and a Grey Cup berth, but the Leos lost 27-19 to the Argos -- their most recent appearance in a Grey Cup.
chris.cariou@freepress.mb.ca
Alouettes ignore past history
Last Updated: Thursday, November 16, 2006 12:22 AM ET
The Canadian Press
The Montreal Alouettes head into the Grey Cup with neither history nor statistics on their side.
But in a one-game showdown with everything on the line, the Alouettes believe none of that matters and that they can beat the favoured B.C. Lions in Sunday's Grey Cup (CBC, 5:30 p.m. p.m. ET).
"They're a great football team," Alouettes guard Scott Flory said Wednesday. "We give them all the credit in the world.
"They beat us twice this season and they're the first place team in the West and they've got a lot of talent. But we think we're a pretty good football team too.
"We're here. We're in this game and anything can happen in any given game."
Oddsmakers have the Lions as seven-point favourites, a modest figure given that B.C. had the CFL's best offence and third-best defence this season.
Montreal was middle of the pack on both sides of the ball.
And the Lions (13-5) pounded the Alouettes (10-8) both times they met: 48-13 in Montreal on Sept. 1 and 36-20 in Vancouver on Sept. 16.
"That was the regular season — the Grey Cup is a new season," insisted Alouettes general manager and head coach Jim Popp. "I think it's a 50-50 shot."
B.C. has won eight of nine games against Montreal since 2002, with Montreal's lone win a 46-44 squeaker in 2005.
The two defeats this season came during a six-game losing streak that all but erased a 7-0 start to the season.
The first setback at home was bad, but the second at B.C. Place was an embarrassment as the Lions put up a statistic the Alouettes will hear about repeatedly this week: 12 sacks on Montreal quarterbacks Anthony Calvillo and Marcus Brady.
Lions led CFL in sacks
The B.C. front four of all-stars Brent Johnson and Tyrone Williams, rookie of the year candidate Aaron Hunt and Chris Wilson had a league-leading 59 sacks this season and are one of Calvillo's top concerns.
"They're got four monsters on that defensive line that cause us a lot of problems and in order for us to be successful, we'll have to control those four guys," he said.
He said the B.C. defence is built on the front four getting a big pass rush while the rest play zone defence.
The Alouettes hope to counter by changing their blocking schemes and having Calvillo move his pocket around the backfield.
The prospect of another B.C. sack festival is "the last thing on my mind," he added.
The Alouettes say the sacks were partly due to injuries to their offensive line.
They were without tackle Dave Mudge, the CFL's outstanding lineman in 2001 who missed the first 17 games of the season with a pectoral muscle injury.
Others were playing hurt.
Now they have a veteran offensive line intact with Bryan Chiu at centre, Flory and Paul Lambert at guard and Mudge and Uzooma Okeke at tackle, with Luke Fritz moved in and out from play to play.
"Guys are back healthy and feeling good and we played some really good football these last few weeks," said Flory, a canadiate for the CFL's Most Outstanding Lineman Award.
"That's what's important."
Alouettes thrive in Winnipeg
The Alouettes also like Winnipeg's Canad Inns Stadium, where they won twice this season and where they have won on five of their last six visits.
The latest victory, a 23-20 win over the Blue Bombers on Sept. 29, marked fifth-year head coach Don Matthews' last game before he resigned due to what the team said was unspecified health concerns and which Matthews later said was stress and mental fatigue.
"We like this stadium," added Flory. "We've always had success here in Winnipeg and that is something that has to translate on the field for us on Sunday."
Popp took over as head coach and has since posted a 3-2 record, including last week's victory over Toronto in the East Division final.
The Alouettes look more relaxed since the coaching change and have cut down somewhat on the penalties and missed assignments that marked thier mid-season losing run.
The stadium was cold and windy for a two-hour workout Wednesday, Montreal's first since they landed in the Manitoba capital for their fifth Grey Cup game in seven years.
The Alouettes have taken only one championship in that time, in 2002 against the Eskimos in Edmonton.
They have lost two since then, including an overtime loss to Edmonton last year. And few will pick them to beat the Lions this time time around.
"People are going to continue to write what they will, but we didn't come out here for nothing," said Calvillo. "We're coming here expecting to win.
"B.C. is a tough team. They've won a lot of games for a good reason, because they're a solid team. But we believe we can beat them."
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