Stampeders 26 – Alouettes 30 | They don’t know how to lose anymore

A movie where the main character doesn’t encounter a bit of adversity would be boring as hell. Who would remember the Boys What if Stan had won his poker game against Meo and simply continued to pay his mortgage on the brewery every two weeks, like a good citizen, without the risk of losing it?

The Alouettes’ Saturday night against the Calgary Stampeders looked like a good movie script. Adversity galore, but that doesn’t stop the main character from achieving his goals. It was settled 30-26 Montreal, in a thunderous Percival-Molson Stadium.

With the win, the Alouettes improve to 5-0 this season, and have now won their last 13 games, including the playoffs and the end of the 2023 season. Their last loss was on September 15.

This team doesn’t lose anymore, and the feeling of invincibility makes people say things that you don’t usually hear in this city these days.

Listen to Alouettes head coach Jason Maas on that 5-0 record. “That’s my expectation. I’m never going to give up a win in this locker room,” said a confident Maas. “I don’t believe in breaking the schedule into six-game segments. I’m focused exclusively on the game at hand.”

“If I think we’re going to lose, I shouldn’t be here. It’s one week at a time, and we expect to win every game. So if you asked me what I expect after five games, I would have said 5-0.”

Missteps and injuries

The match had not even started when good old adversity reared its ugly head.

In the warm-up alone, the Alouettes lost two soldiers in David Côté and Louis-Philippe Bourassa, respectively a precision kicker and a specialist in long passes.

Then, during a second rough quarter for Montreal, Marc-Antoine Dequoy, one of the few who played with aplomb, also fell in combat. The Quebec marauder injured his upper body while making a hard-hitting tackle.

All this while the Cody Fajardo-led offense was making rare missteps. The Alouettes started this game with a +8 differential in the turnover column; it was rather incongruous to see receiver Tyson Philpot lose the ball, then Fajardo throw an interception on the next sequence. Two turnovers that allowed Calgary to score nine points.

The fact remains that at 26-12 Calgary at the start of the third quarter, Fenway Park in the North was very quiet.

Heroes

Fortunately, the concept of three stars does not exist in football, because we would have been embarrassed to limit ourselves to three players in this comeback.

Let’s start with José Maltos, the kicker called up in relief of Côté barely an hour before the game. He didn’t do anything spectacular, but for a guy who only had nine field goal attempts under his belt so far in the CFL, he did his job. Three for three on his field goals.

“It took our whole fucking locker room to win, so yeah, I might have trouble sleeping. But I’d be more worried if it didn’t!” Maas said.

On defense, Tyrice Beverette was in all the action. His record? Nine tackles, and a pass knockdown late in the game, when the Stampeders were trying to confirm their victory.

It’s rare to classify a running back who only had five carries as a hero in a game, but Walter Fletcher did just that. His five carries included the 31-yard touchdown run that went on to win the game. That gave him 56 rushing yards and 104 passing yards. Which makes you wonder why he wasn’t used more on the ground.

“It’s always easier to analyse afterwards,” Maas said. “During the game, you try to take advantage of different things you see. Could we have run more? Of course. But I’m not going to continually question what we do every week.”

Finally, Philpot also had a good one in his body, despite losing the ball in the second quarter. He caught 12 of the 13 passes thrown his way for 134 yards, but it was his 39-yard gain on the Alouettes’ winning drive that will be remembered.

Philpot was also facing his twin brother (Jalen, not Robin), for the very first time in the CFL. Was there a challenge between the two brothers for this first duel?

“No, it’s illegal here!” Tyson Philpot snapped out of the gate. Two robot bits for the repartee, two days after Shawn Lemon’s suspension.

Finally, the crowd deserves flowers too. The sequence where thousands of spectators screamed while turning on the flashlight of their phone, like when Scorpions performs Wind of Change in show, scored Cody Fajardo. “I’ve never seen anything like it!” said the Alouettes quarterback.

The most enthusiastic will simply have to be reminded, if they really want to support their club, to drop the “olé olé olé” when the team is on the attack, as was the case at the end of the match. “We may need more calm at times, but this crowd knows when to shout!” assured Fajardo.