CALGARY'S WORST NIGHTMARE IS COMING TRUE

Calgary’s Worst Nightmare Is Coming True!

By Bob Hughes

It’s the kind of storyline the Calgary Stampeders wanted in the worst way. They would spend the 2010 Canadian Football League season beating the Saskatchewan Roughriders more than they lost to them.

They would finish in first place in the Western Division. And, they would host the Western Division final.So far, so good.But the very last thing the Stampeders wanted was for the Roughriders to finish second, win the semi-final, and go into Calgary for the Western final on a high note.Up until the end of double overtime in the semi-final when Darian Durant threw to Jason Clermont from 24 yards out and he put on a burst of speed nobody knew he had to score the winning TD in a 41-38 victory over B.C., the Stampeders were having it all their own way.

Two weeks ago, they were licking their chops, giggling as they watched the hapless Riders fall deeper and deeper into a four-game losing tailspin that threatened to ruin their season and rock the Rider Nation. All that, even though the Riders had clinched second place.

The Stampeders had every right to think that an easy catch would be thrown to them because there seemed no way Saskatchewan would beat the Lions in the semi-final. After all, Saskatchewan’s offence was, well, offensive.

The special teams got more laughs than Jay Leno at his peak. And, the defence couldn’t have stopped a leaky faucet with any tool. The head coach looked as if he was napping his way through games. And, his assistants looked, and coached at times, as if they’d rather have been somewhere else.

Worse, nobody of any consequence was getting fired as the Good Ship Rider seemed going down faster than the Titanic.The season was beginning to look like a write off for the Riders. Instead of everybody talking about all the home game sellouts, they were whispering about how the Riders had sold out the Rider Nation.

Lock the doors, run up the flag, head for the hills.Ken Miller, the sleepy-eyed head coach with more wrinkles than Jimmy Durante at the end, took this whole four-game losing streak and subsequent leaping off the bandwagon in stride. He just seemed to ignore it.

It was like he had missed it, slept through the whole thing. He looked and acted as if he was in the midst of a four-game winning streak. You figured that if he been in charge of the Alamo, he would have taken a look at the Mexican army, and shrugged it off. “How are they going to climb these walls?” he would have said.

The Rider Nation would listen to the coach say, over and over again, that everything was fine, that the team’s resolve was as strong as it ever was. And, hundreds of thousands of Rider fans across the country leaned back and slapped their hands on their foreheads. The Riders were crumbling, and the head coach didn’t seem to realize it.The Riders had one last chance to turn it around.

Their final home game was against the Eskimos, a team that was a week away from firing their coach no matter what. The Riders had nothing to play for, they already had a lock on second place. And, they started out playing as if they were still in a coma of some kind. But, near the end of the first half, something different happened.

Darian Durant started calling his own plays, and the Riders caught fire. They beat Edmonton. But, more importantly, they beat off the demons.They were a team again.

They were winners again.They flashed displays of boredom in the first half of the semi-final against a B.C. Lions team which displayed the results of one of the best coaching jobs seen in a long time, turned in by Wally Buono.

But, if there is one thing you can say about the Riders, it is this. They do come to play, it just takes them a while to get to the point where they do actually play.Usually, they have to be behind.

Usually, they have to look listless and lifeless. Then, when all around them is coming apart, Durant somehow finds the switch that turns them into a raging bull, a runaway freight train. Ask the Lions. Ask Wally Buono.

The Western final is a rite of fall. It’s usually the game of the year. It’s war. It’s the last man standing who wins, that’s what it is.You think the Calgary Stampeders are going to wake up on Sunday, and grin that they get to play the Riders in the Western final.

Hell, they’ve lost the last four games they’ve played against the Riders in the playoffs. They haven’t beaten the Riders in the playoffs since 1994.And, they know that when trot out on the turf at McMahon Stadium on Sunday, there will be a sea of green in the stands, and a Saskatchewan Roughrider team on the field that has no fear.

Ken Miller knew it all along. And, quite likely, so did Henry Burris. This is the last scenario that John Hufnagel wanted.bobhughes@sasktel.net(Bob Hughes is in the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. To read all of his columns, click here: http://www.exitrealtyfusion.com/bob-hughes.html)