The B.C. Lions took shelter from the elements in the cozy confines of BC Place this week, but don’t expect a lack of cold weather experience to hold the visitors back in the Western Final.
Speaking to the Winnipeg media on Friday, head coach Rick Campbell dispelled the narrative that his team would not be prepared for the prairie cold come kickoff.
“I tell our guys the ‘C’ in CFL stands for Canadian, not Caribbean,” he quipped. “It’s the Canadian Football League and it’s minus two. I mean, if we’re fazed by that, I sure hope we’re not. I’m not the toughest guy in the world but I walked outside today and I was okay.”
Questions about cold weather toughness have consistently plagued the Lions whenever their season has pushed into November. That is especially true when travelling to Manitoba, where handling the frigid winters is a source of regional pride.
Never mind that local temperatures are barely expected to dip below freezing on Saturday, the wolves were out on social media the second word leaked that the Lions were preparing indoors. However, by avoiding the rain-drenched chill of their Surrey practice facility, B.C. prioritized something much more impactful: crowd noise.
“I understand it being a topic of conversation, the weather in Vancouver versus the weather in Winnipeg and all that, but I just don’t see that being a big factor tomorrow,” Campbell explained. “The crowd noise is a very real thing. As you know, it’s hard to function when you can’t talk to someone.”
When the Lions travelled to Winnipeg for last year’s Western Final, they were dogged by the same questions about them being a warm-weather team ill-suited to playoff football in the winter. While B.C. lost that game in conditions far colder than this year’s forecast, it wasn’t the ice that killed them.
Instead, it was critical errors late in the game caused by the sold-out crowd at IG Field and the Lions’ poor preparation that loomed largest in defeat.
“Last year, coming down to the end of the game, it was a close one and a lot of time got taken off of the clock because of communication issues,” star receiver Keon Hatcher confessed. “The crowd got really loud and we didn’t have a lot of signals in place for the plays that we wanted to run in those moments. It caught up to us and we weren’t able to put the ball in the endzone at the end of the game.”
That outcome fundamentally changed how the Lions approached the game this year, favouring working out the kinks of their silent count over thickening their skin outside.
“I think it’s an advantage for us this year as compared to last year, just that it’s pretty clear what environment we’re facing. You can talk about it as one thing but to experience it is a different thing. We expect an electric atmosphere here tomorrow,” Campbell explained.
“We worked hard on the crowd noise. We were in BC Place all week, where it was legit crowd noise and you’ve got your speakers going throughout the stadium where you can’t talk or hear. We really got in a good groove of just being comfortable with that.”
According to quarterback Vernon Adams Jr., who was at the helm when B.C. pulled a stunning 30-6 upset over the Bombers at IG Field earlier this year, that change in approach is the only way the Lions can help neutralize Winnipeg’s biggest advantage.
“These are the loudest fans in the CFL; we all know that,” he acknowledged. “I think practicing in the dome this week helped. Having the echo and everything, we have to over-communicate signals and things like that. I think it helped us. I think it’s going to help us.”
That still won’t be enough to convince a segment of red-blooded Canadians that practicing under a roof come playoff time isn’t a testament to the wimpiness of Vancouverites, but Campbell isn’t concerned by that.
“We’ll take that we’re the soft team from the West Coast,” he grinned. “We’ll live with that label and we’ll see how we do.”
The Lions (12-6) will visit the Bombers (14-4) for the Western Final on Saturday, November 11 at 6:30 p.m. EST.
[metabet_core_odds_board query=”553636″ site_id=”3downnation”]
