The play on words is easy to make, but we’re going to use it anyway; the Montreal Alouettes are booming. A boom that began a little after mid-September of 2023 after four defeats in a row, the last two against a club from the Eastern section which will try, later this week, to slow down a Montreal team that has since become irresistible.
This rival is the Toronto Argonauts (2-0) who will host the Alouettes (3-0) at BMO Field on Friday evening.
This will be the first meeting between the two teams since head coach Jason Maas’ men dominated the Argonauts 38-17 on this same field in the Canadian Football League’s Eastern Division final on November 11. Eight days later, the Alouettes won the Grey Cup against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
This is a meeting that defensive back Marc-Antoine Dequoy is impatiently awaiting against a team that he respects to the highest degree, even in the absence of quarterback Chad Kelly. He has been under a nine-game suspension since the league announced in early May that he had violated the circuit’s policy on gender-based violence.
“It’s a team that is really strong. We shouldn’t think that since Chad Kelly is not there, they are any less strong. They are excessively strong,” said Dequoy after the Alouettes’ training session Wednesday noon in Saint-Léonard.
“They are well managed and they still have big players on both sides. We don’t take this lightly, in any way. It’s going to be a good team that we’re going to face. It’s just to come out of there with the victory,” he added.
Records
The Alouettes will present themselves in the Argonauts’ castle while they are experiencing their best moments in many years.
It is, among other highlights, the first time since 2011 that they have won their first three matches of the calendar. If they win Friday night, they will match their start to the 2009 campaign, a season in which they had a 15-3 record and won the Gray Cup.
Furthermore, the 47-21 thaw that they served to the Ottawa Rouge et Noir last Thursday during their home opener allowed the Alouettes to equal their team mark of eight consecutive victories in the regular season, achieved in three other occasions either during the same season (2002) or over the course of two years (1976-1977; 1996-1997).
The current streak covers the last five games of 2023 and the first three of 2024.
Better yet, they have won their last 11 games — eight in the regular season, three in the playoffs — and erased their old record of ten wins in a row — six in the regular season and four playoff games — which dates back to the 1949 season- 1950.
After two questions on the same theme on Wednesday afternoon, Maas ended up implying that such sequences of success – of which he was unaware of the existence, he said – are not trivial. But quickly, he gets back to basics.
“My short answer to that is ‘we don’t care, we just want to win, that’s all’. We go about our business week in and week out, we care about ourselves, our process. I think we had an excellent week of training,” said Maas, when a journalist asked him about the possibility of winning a ninth consecutive game in the regular season.
“Would such a victory be special? Absolutely ! But they are all special,” continued Maas, to the second question.
“I’ve said it before: in this organization, we never take victory for granted, we never take our preparation for granted. We just focus on that, and when you win and you keep winning, good things happen. It would be a big accomplishment for this organization and for this group of guys, but it’s not why we do what we do. »
One thing is certain: the Alouettes, at present, are nothing like the club which, on September 15, 2023, had just suffered a fourth loss in a row and a sixth in 13 games, 23-20 at home against the Argonauts.
Over its last eight games in 2023, including the playoffs and the Gray Cup game, the Montreal team has scored 239 points and only given up 123, for an average of just over 15 points per game.
“I think as an organization we just continue to get better,” Maas said when asked to explain his team’s impressive transformation.
“We learned our lessons throughout the season last year. Every week we learned more, we improved as the season progressed. This year we picked up where we left off,” he added.
In his analysis, Maas did not forget to pay tribute to his players.
“The guys are focused on their task. They know how to prepare, they know how we run the team, they know our systems. Above all, we have a wonderful group of guys who love playing for each other. And we work hard to achieve this. But there have been lessons along the way, and there will be plenty of lessons to learn this season. We don’t take any day for granted and that’s what I love about this group of guys. »