Peter Dyakowski
CFL.ca
We in Tiger-town, along with our counterparts in Bomber-burg, are experiencing something special this Friday night. The Ticats and Blue Bombers are playing each other for the fifth time (counting a pre-season match-up) in eight weeks. This is, as far as I know (I don’t really do any research or fact-checking for this blog), an historic occasion.
First and foremost, my hat goes off to our coaching staff. They have had to throw out and rewrite our entire offensive and defensive packages several times this season in order to keep our enemies in Winnipeg guessing.
With the lessons learned from last season’s espionage still fresh in our minds, other such precautions are also being taken. Security sweeps at Ivor Wynne are being conducted more rigorously and with a greater degree of technological sophistication and our own agents in the ‘Peg are operating under deeper cover than ever.
Cloaks and daggers aside, the unique experience gives us players a great opportunity to get to know our opponents better than any others we may face in this, or any, season.
On top of making merely superficial observations, such as noticing that Doug Brown has stunning blue eyes, we get to delve deeper into the psyches of those across from us. Did you know that even though his eyes are as blue as a tropical lagoon, Doug has never learned to swim, has never overcome the shame of this failure, and to this day is afraid of large bodies of water?
You can learn a lot about a man from the subtle changes in the way he strikes you in the head.
Some players develop tremendous rivalries squaring off so frequently but, surprisingly more often, certain players develop bonds so deep words fail to describe them.
Just last Saturday, I observed Yannick Carter coming off the field after a punt return. Now, Yannick has just gone through a tough break-up and he’s been taking it pretty hard (crying in meetings, writing bad poetry, etc).
Joe Lobendahn, running onto the field, approached him, stopped, their eyes meeting, and gently embraced Yannick. As far as I know, Yannick had never said anything to Lobendahn about the break-up. He didn’t need to. Joe just knew.
Stories like that have played themselves out across our teams but none are quite so touching.
I have heard that Garrett McIntyre and Kelly Butler are now facebook friends and, personally, I have built a strong friendship with Winnipeg’s Centre, Obby Khan. It is a friendship built on a firm foundation of mutual respect and understanding. We had the good fortune of facing each other on a couple of goal-line plays a few weeks ago with me filling in on defence as a back-up nose-tackle.
He had nothing but kind things to say to me about my competitive attitude and I repaid him the courtesy. I have even heard that he was raving about me after the game for the better part of a week.
Like the final day of a childhood summer camp, there will be tearful goodbyes and friendship bracelets exchanged as the game clock ticks to zero on Friday night but we can hold out hope for a sixth meeting in November.
