RIDERS ARE THE PEOPLES CHOICE TO WIN THE GREY CUP

CALGARY - It could be any one of a number of elements. An electrifying kick return from Jason Armstead. A last-play kick from Luca Congi. Bruise Brothers Stevie Baggs and John Chick arriving together, and in ill humour, on Anthony Calvillo's doorstep at a decisive moment. An off-the-cuff Darian Durant scramble inside the red-zone.

Or, who knows, it might be something as offbeat, as insignificant, as 2,000 calories of sugar-impacted creamy goodness.

''My lucky cheesecake,'' explained Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive back Eddie Davis. ''I always eat a piece of lucky cheesecake the night before a big game. I've been doing it since college. Got to have my cheesecake. Superstition, I guess.

''So my wife's made a cheesecake and I'm taking it back to the room tonight.
''Could've ordered room service, I suppose. But my wife's cheesecake is better than anything you can get at a hotel.''

Saves $10 or so, too.

Eddie could use that ten-spot to slap down on the Riders' nose.
Given the line, he might win enough to stock the fridge with enough cheesecake to last from now until Canada Day.

''We are confident. Very confident,'' said Stevie Baggs, a rush end, following Saskatchewan's final walk-through dress-rehearsal early Saturday afternoon. ''In ourselves. In our game plan. But it's often said: The person who exalts is humbled; the person who is humble is exalted.

''A year and a half ago, I was out of football, back home. And now I'm playing in the Grey Cup Game. I feel blessed. The week has been tiring, exciting.

''But when we step out on that (field), it's time to get it done.''

With due deference to the tourists from next door and their insatiable appetite to party, what has most characterized this Grey Cup week is, frankly, a deadening air of predictability. The Makin' Whoopee question concluded the annual head coaches media conference on Wednesday. As always.

Als evergreen pivot Anthony Calvillo managed a feat at the CFL Awards soiree that no defence in the league could over 18 weeks - slam the brakes on Joffrey Reynolds' runaway train. As expected.

Commissioner Mark Cohon two-stepped around the sensitive Canadian/import ratio question as if auditioning for a spot on So You Think You Can Dance Canada. Well, now there's a shocker.
It snowed. Of course.

By the walk-throughs, the media mob had run dry of fresh questions and the players were understandably short on coherent answers. Natch.

But there's one intangible that has the power to lift the 97th edition out of the ordinary and into the realm of happening: A Saskatchewan Roughriders victory.

Nothing whatsoever against the Montreal Alouettes intended, understand. General manager Jim Popp and head coach Marc Trestman can take luxurious bows for building and then improving upon a first-class organization; the envy of all. They've conducted themselves here with pristine professionalism. Athletes as gifted and classy as Calvillo, Ben Cahoon, Anwar Stewart and Scott Flory deserve to be spared such habitual Grey Cup heartache, and forced into answering the same numbing questions trip after blessed trip to the big game.

The 15-3 Als seem superior in virtually every facet. They exude the sort of the destiny-fulfilled aura instantly recognizable in past champions.

And yet . . .

''This is one game for all the marbles,'' pointed out Riders kindly coach Ken Miller. ''History doesn't matter. Statistics don't matter. When we tee it up and kick the football off, it's just one game between two good football teams.

''I have a good feeling about it, yes.''

After watching the revitalized Calvillo kill the spirit and then autopsy the corpse of the B.C. Lions last week, the Riders are being given as much chance Sunday as one of the those quick-pay ''contenders'' Mike Tyson used to flatten during his murderous reign as heavyweight champion. Most analysts consider them the football equivalent of, say, Pinklon Thomas or Tony Tubbs.

But if they're not the bettor's picks, they're certainly the people's choice. All the fence-sitters across this land seem to have invested emotionally, for at least one day, in the Riders.

When asked why he felt that was so, Miller's response drew a big laugh: ''Well, we're a nice bunch of guys.''
If the two lopsided losses inflicted by the Als earlier this season had done any lasting psychological damage on that nice bunch of guys, they haven't let on this week.

''We're calm. We're confident. But once we hit that field, we'll channel all our pent-up emotion towards the Montreal Alouettes,'' said Davis, supported Sunday by his dad Eddie I, in from St. Louis, and his infant son, Eddie III.

''Besides, no pressure on our shoulders.'' A conspiratorial wink. ''We haven't got a snowball's chance in hell, right?''

When Mark Messier arrived in the Big Apple specifically to end an agonizing half-century title drought at MSG, he wasn't shy about admitting he drifted off to sleep at night fantasizing about the thrill of a Stanley Cup parade down Broadway. Durant understands where Mess was coming from.

''You have to visualize something before it happens,'' explained the quarterback on the hot seat Sunday. ''See it in your mind. Play it out in your head.''

Funny, but Baggs has been seeing the same movie over and over in his head.
''We'll do whatever it takes,'' he vowed. ''Whatever we need. We've got to stay strong and resilient. The smallest detail, one you don't even think of, could end up being the difference.''

As small, as insignificant, say, as a slice of Mrs. Davis' lucky cheesecake?

In spite of overwhelming odds, the 97th Grey Cup could yet provide a spectacular, unpredictable ending. A green ending.

''We know the blood, sweat and tears shed to get to this point,'' said Durant, gently defiant. ''We're approaching the game the way we did the last two against Calgary, when the stakes were huge, too.
''These guys are my guys. Soldiers. Warriors. I wouldn't trade them for anybody.

''We deserve to be here. We know that.

''Now we have to show the world.''

Calgary Herald

gjohnson@theherald.canwest.com