Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
With the disappointment of Week 1’s game in Winnipeg still fresh in the minds of players, coaches and fans, the Ticats will look to bounce back and earn their first victory of the season Friday night against the Blue Bombers.
As early in the season as it is, the urgency to record that first ‘W’ is increasing and it would be a major advantage to take care of business at home, before embarking on a tough road trip.
“We feel a need to win every week, but obviously the longer you go without doing that the more important it becomes,” said Head Coach Marcel Bellefeuille.
“We did have a sense of urgency going into the Calgary game last week and we did improve, and obviously we feel like we need to continue to improve every week now,” he added.
The team entered the season with high expectations from experts around the league. Facing a bit of adversity early in the season may not be a bad thing.
“With high expectations obviously comes some pressure, it’s kind of nice for them to have the opportunity to play under a little bit of pressure this early in the season because certainly later in the year it’s going to come back and you’re going to have to deal with it,” said Bellefeuille.
“So I like the fact that they’re getting the chance to be faced with some of it early and test their mettle a little bit,” he said.
The success of a team throughout a long and grueling 18-game schedule depends mainly on their ability to grow as a unit and continue to improve from week to week. It is often the team that hits their stride at the right time late in the season that can make a long playoff run.
Even though an 0-2 record is a disappointment, each week has brought with it a marked improvement.
“We challenged the players to be better, to execute better and do the little things better going into the Calgary game,” said Bellefeuille.
“I felt like we had significant growth there, we didn’t get the result we wanted.”
“This week the preparation was better than the previous two and the attention to detail was better than the previous two at practice, it has to translate into the game situation now but they’re certainly on their way,” he said.
After losing a game that the Ticats dominated most of the key areas in, Hamilton hopes to right the ship in their final home game before a two-game stretch on the road, at Montreal and at Saskatchewan.
