RIDER PRIDE

The Saskatchewan Roughriders play the Montreal Alouettes in Calgary at Grey Cup on Sunday, November 29.
Photograph by: leaderpost.com, .

CALGARY — The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the decided favourites for the 97th Grey Cup, except in the estimation of the oddsmakers.

At last word, the Roughriders were 9 1/2-point underdogs for Sunday's Grey Cup, in which they are to oppose the formidable Montreal Alouettes at McMahon Stadium.

However, the Roughriders enjoy a decided advantage in terms of location, location, location. The CFL's championship clash is a virtual home game for the Roughriders, who have occupied the Calgary Stampeders' dressing room throughout Grey Cup week.

It is fair to suggest that the Riders will be the favourite team of a vast majority of the 46,020 people who attend Sunday's game. Amid the sea of melonheads, an Alouettes supporter will be tougher to find than a card-carrying member of the Bay City Rollers Fan Club.

Now the question is: How much will the crowd influence the outcome?

Roughriders fans hope that this year's Grey Cup is not a reprise of 1997, in which the Toronto Argonauts eviscerated Saskatchewan 47-23.

On the surface, there are parallels.

The Argonauts, like this year's Alouettes, posted a 15-3 record. The 1997 Argos were quarterbacked by Doug Flutie, who won his unprecedented sixth most-outstanding-player award that season. The current edition of the Alouettes employs signal-caller Anthony Calvillo, who won his second successive MOP award on Thursday. The moment Calvillo becomes eligible, he will join Flutie in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
Back in 1997, the Roughriders took a somewhat similar route to the final — winning the West final against the team from the Grey Cup's host city.

Within days, Edmonton was over-run with Roughriders fans, who were predominant at Commonwealth Stadium in November of 1997. Uh, you know the rest . . .

"We'll have a strong contingent of green and white here,'' said offensive tackle Gene Makowsky, a Roughrider since 1995. "Just like '97, we're facing a team with a pretty spectacular regular-season record and a Hall of Fame quarterback. We know we're going to have to play a very good, mistake-free game against these guys. Hopefully the outcome is different than '97.''

Based on that example, a robustly pro-Saskatchewan gathering, by itself, is not going to make the difference.
And speaking of differences: There is hardly a direct comparison between the 1997 and 2009 Roughriders.
The 1997 team snuck into the playoffs with an 8-10-0 record, good for third place in the West Division, before engineering upset playoff victories over the Stampeders and Edmonton Eskimos. The 2009 Roughriders, by contrast, finished first in the West — accomplishing that feat for the first time since 1976 — before disposing of the visiting Stampeders in the division final.

Reggie Slack, who piloted the Roughriders to the 1997 championship game, turned out to be a one-month wonder. Darian Durant, who is to accept snaps for Saskatchewan on Sunday, looks very much like he will become a fixture with the Green and White.

Deep down, even the most delusional optimists had to know that the 1997 Roughriders were poised for a slaughter. This time around, the Saskatchewan players are exuding confidence, while being entirely cognizant of the gargantuan task that awaits them.

Montreal is coming off Sunday's 56-18 victory over the B.C. Lions in Sunday's East Division final. Calvillo, who completed an eye-popping 72 per cent of his passes during the regular season, scorched the listless Lions for five touchdown passes. Calvillo & Co. appear to be as close to invincible as any CFL team in recent memory.

That said, there are compelling reasons to believe that the Riders can make Sunday's game considerably more interesting than the oddsmakers project.

This is a team that continually defies the skeptics, such as those who dared to predict that Saskatchewan would finish last. The Roughriders are quarterbacked by someone who has continually been told that he is too short, and that his throwing arm is too weak. And Durant has been hearing that since he was in high school — around the time that Saskatchewan made an obligatory Grey Cup appearance against Toronto.
Durant and the Roughriders embrace their toughest challenge to date. There is little margin for error, if any, if the Roughriders are to upend the machine-like Alouettes.

But remember this: People have been betting against the Roughriders, and their quarterback, for quite some time.

And maybe, just maybe, they have one more surprise in store.

Regina Leader-Post