Somebody should bottle what we just watched the last seven days and distribute it from coast to coast.
Because the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders are Canadian football’s energy drink, loaded with buzz-inducing stimulants.
All legal, of course.
Oh, there may have been a few among the 32,000-plus in the packed sunken bowl in south Winnipeg on Saturday who over-imbibed while celebrating the Bombers’ stomping of the flu-challenged Riders.
But, just like last week’s full house in Regina, this was for the most part good, clean fun.
If you just dropped in from Pluto for the Labour Day weekend and stuck around to see what the CFL was about, you’d have climbed back onto your star ship thinking all is right in the three-down world.
Deafening crowds, robust TV audiences and coverage – if only the rest of the league, and the rest of the season, could have the same feel.
“The energy is different,” Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros said. “Sometimes opposing teams come from half-empty stadiums and they get a little bit of a boost, too. It’s quite the atmosphere here. I can’t say enough about our fans. We all feel, as players, a real privilege because it’s special to be a part of.
“Any time we get a sack or a pass knockdown or a stop, the roof just blows off, and it’s awesome.”
Collaros fed off it to complete 21 of 25 passes for 275 yards and four touchdowns, as his nearly-perfect, first-place team romped over their rivals, 54-20.
Nothing was going to stop the Bombers from improving to 12-1 on this day, certainly not a flu-depleted Riders squad that had to fly in healthy replacements the night before.
As intense as things were in a close game a week earlier, the Bombers came home to find another level, getting superb performances from nearly everyone.
A couple stood out, receivers Rasheed Bailey and Nic Demski topping the list on offence.
Bailey wasn’t having a bad year, but you’d be hard-pressed to say the third-year receiver was having a really good one.
He was going to supplant the departed Kenny Lawler as Collaros’s No. 1 target, the thinking went.
Through a dozen games, though, Bailey was fourth in catches and fifth in yards, behind rookie sensation Dalton Schoen, Greg Ellingson, Drew Wolitarsky and Demski.
Most puzzling, perhaps: Bailey was the only one of Winnipeg’s top-five receivers averaging less than 10 yards a grab.
Then came Saturday’s first half, in which Bailey caught everything thrown his way: five balls for a 83 yards and a touchdown you had to see in slow-mo to appreciate.
Catching a pass over the middle, the 29-year-old outran the Riders defence, tight-roped the sideline and launched himself into the air around the five-yard line.
While his momentum was taking him out of bounds, Bailey extended his left arm, with the ball, reaching for the end zone.
All 6-foot-1, 211 pounds of Bailey was out of bounds in the air. But the ball grazed the corner of the orange pylon. Touchdown.
Bailey watched the play for the first time on FaceTime with his mom and sister right after the game.
“I didn’t know I jumped that far,” he said. “My mom said she was screaming at the TV. Everybody was screaming. She was calling me Superman.”
Instead of an ‘S’ on his chest, Bailey had a ‘W.’
Instead of a phone booth, he has the southwest corner of the end zone.
“I only score touchdowns in that spot,” he said. “It’s crazy. In that end zone, in that corner. That is my spot. I should have took that pylon with me.”
With Bailey as the spark plug, the Winnipeg offence was humming all day, eight cylinders pumping in harmony. The run game, the right arm of Collaros, receivers all in the perfect spots – it was something to behold.
Drive after drive took the Bombers to the end zone, aided at times by the most undisciplined team in three-down football.
The Winnipeg offence didn’t really need the help. It was running on high-octane fuel.
On another high-octane, Banjo Bowl Saturday.
While Bailey played to the crowd all day, the opposite sideline told another story.
After a late interception by Winnipeg’s Winston Rose, Riders receiver Shaq Evans ripped off his helmet and hurled it into the advertising board near his team’s bench.
We’re not sure what had Evans more upset: the bad pass by his quarterback, or the sure touchdown pass that went through his hands one series earlier.
It was that kind of day for the Riders.
And it was some kind of week for football on the prairies.
“I wish there was this much intensity around the league,” Demski said.
So do we.
pfriesen@postmedia.com
Twitter: @friesensunmedia
Post a Comment