(Hamilton) How do you fully grasp the significance of a championship game while trying to ignore it?
The question may seem trivial, but a few hours before the Gray Cup, this dilemma is on the minds of the Alouettes players.
It has become a classic, almost a cliché, but before playing for a title, each athlete will say that the eventual match is one like any other. He will say that the routine remains the same and that the stakes, as immense as they are, change nothing in his approach or his preparation.
On the other hand, in the days or hours leading up to said match, everything is amplified. The media coverage, fan interest and demand for energy are incomparable to what the players will have experienced during the regular season.
Marc-Antoine Dequoy has reflected on this interesting dichotomy in recent days. And the marauder was the most requested player this week, unsurprisingly.
“We talk about it every day and words carry weight. And I realized that when you say it’s a big week, you create importance for yourself,” he says on the sidelines after training.
But if words have weight, to use the words of the Quebecer, it may also be possible, conversely, to repeat to oneself that even if he is on the eve of playing the most significant match of his life, that remains just another football game. As he has played hundreds in his life before.
“Telling yourself this is the best way to believe it, because the reality is that this is not a normal week. This is not a match like any other. So you do your best to act like it’s a normal match. »
“You have to keep routine as much as possible,” says David Côté.
The Alouettes reached the Gray Cup against all odds and it is not by chance.
“You have to do the same things that have kept things going well for 23 weeks. Obviously, there are lots of things like the media, banquets, all those things. And it’s cool, you like it and it’s normal. But once the whistle blows and the first kick is made, you’re in your game and it’s a game like any other, at that point. »
The kicker is right when he says that the rules remain the same, that the field is unchanged and that the players are not more or less good. Only the scale of the purpose will change.
However, “if you start thinking about what’s at stake, you’re done,” thinks Dequoy. You concentrate! It’s easy to say, but it’s harder to do.”
Dequoy and Côté, like the majority of their teammates, will be making their first appearance in the Gray Cup final.
However, Luc Brodeur-Jourdain is one of those who tasted the supreme elixir, in 2009 and 2010, with the Alouettes.
So he’s in a good position to know what works and what doesn’t in a week like that.
“It’s about focusing on what we’ve done throughout the season,” he says. What is our routine? How did we work? And now, we have to deal with the little unforeseen events that come with a Gray Cup week. »
He cites facilities, scheduling, interviews and transportation as the main imponderables. Besides that, “the way we prepare for the match, draw our plays and work with the guys on the field remains in the same dynamic”.
The goal is to control all the elements, as much as possible, “but it remains a challenge,” he swears.
Despite everything, normality remains a rare commodity in this kind of environment. The players are not fooled. No matter how much they insist on repeating to themselves that everything is normal, “you know it’s exceptional,” admits the offensive line coach.
Ultimately, the team that wins this Sunday night will be the one that manages to transform the extraordinary into the ordinary.
And no game plan, no statistics and no video analysis can succeed in reassuring a team in its ambitions to normalize such a context. The best team will be the one that manages to convince itself of this best.
This feeling mainly comes through pleasure, as cliché as it may be. Kristian Matte is the only player from the last conquest of 2010 to still play for the Alouettes.
He and his teammates want to enjoy and bite into every second since they arrived on Monday, because Matte knows that 13 years of waiting is a long time.
“It’s special to be at the Gray Cup. So we have fun. And at our practices, we always have fun, but this week, we have a little more, we have to admit,” emphasized the offensive lineman on the podium in the media room.
A few hours before the clash for which the Alouettes have been working hard since their training camp in Trois-Rivières in mid-May, hearts are light and the players are in wonder mode. They worked too hard not to enjoy it.
Saturday afternoon, the team took to the field to take group photos, throw frisbees and simulate a few games. No player wore shoulder pads, but everyone carried with them the feeling of having a privileged experience, because they are.
