Adam Gagnon
Bert Faibish
Ticats.ca
For two football teams at opposite ends of the post-season spectrum, Saturday’s game has as many storylines as your average Days Of Our Lives episode.
Despite the fact that the Tiger-Cats and BC Lions meet only twice a year during the regular season, they certainly don’t lack for animosity towards one another.
It could be that the Lions eliminated Hamilton last season, the Lions’ beef with Jason Jimenez, the wealth of ex-Lion players the Cats have on their roster, or the fact that in their last meeting, the Ticats snatched what looked like certain victory from the hands of the Leos. Come game time, none of that will matter.
For B.C. it will be all about winning. For Hamilton, it will be about channeling the execution and intensity from their recent three-game win streak.
“It’s important for us to play our style of football and to get back playing that way,” said Head Coach Marcel Bellefeuille.
“Hopefully that takes care of the result but how we play is more important than the result,” he added.
On the flip side of the coin, the Lions face a dire situation, where a loss means certain elimination from the post-season party.
“This is a playoff game for us, I don’t know about them but we’ve been playing playoff games for the last six weeks, this will be no different,” said Lions receiver Geroy Simon.
The circumstances of the game will most likely determine coach Bellefeuille’s distribution of playing time to certain starters, but whether that gives an edge to the Ticats or Lions is debatable.
On one hand, if B.C. faces all three Hamilton quarterbacks in the game, game planning against their particular strengths and weaknesses will be next to impossible. On the other hand, first team reps can only go to one pivot, so the other two will have limited opportunities to get a good look at what the B.C. defence likes to do.
“I guess it sort of benefits us because you can give them a bunch of different looks and try to confuse them but at the same time it’s hard for us to prepare for three quarterbacks with different styles, so who knows,” said Lions defensive end Brent Johnson.
The only certainty is that Hamilton’s starters will need to establish the kind of rhythm that made them so successful in the month of October.
A win or loss either way won’t have much bearing on the Ticats, but a failure to recapture the efficiency of games past will make for a nervous fan base come next Sunday.
