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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Bishop becomes blessing

Hired as a saviour, he finally delivers

Posted: 09/27/2009 7:29 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

GOOD on ya, Michael Bishop.

Because if anybody deserved a night in the limelight, it was the embattled Bombers quarterback, who's been paid regular visits from the Unwelcome Wagon since the emergency call went out to his Texas home a couple months ago.

Yeah, it was a heart-stopper, with the Bombers almost blowing a 20-point lead, which would have been a choke of epic proportions.

But they survived, if barely, and Bishop, for once, was the difference.

After all, Bishop was handed an unforgiving task -- to try to give a pulse to a dead-on-arrival offence this season that has more often than not looked like Nick Nolte's mug shot.

But in one of the more critical games in the franchise's recent history, Bishop came through. Of course, the pivot had a little help, including a one-man show in newcomer Otis Amey, who made the most impressive over-the-shoulder reception in the Bombers' season to date. As circus catches go, it was worthy of centre ring. (Isn't it nice to use the word "circus" in Bomberville without it describing what happens off the field?) Sure, maybe it's just delaying the inevitable for a team, now 4-8, that is clinging to razorthin playoff hopes. The victory gives the Bombers a leg up on the brutal Argonauts and puts them within a victory of catching the B.C. Lions in the crossover race. Or maybe "race" is too strong a word.

Regardless, it was a win, and judging by the thousands of empty seats at Canad Inns Stadium, it couldn't have come too soon.

Consider: So foul was the mood among the faithful that when the Bombers opened the scoring last night with a 56-yard punt single from Mike Renaud, it prompted a round of sarcastic cheers. And these were the people who showed up.

Yet that's exactly the sour feeling that was percolating in Winnipeg prior to the opening kickoff. Because you don't head out for a Bombers home game anymore wondering about such mundane questions as, "Can they win?" No, you go to a Bombers home game and wonder just how messy it could get.

That's what it's sunken to, and it's getting very, very expensive.

Do the math: With an announced crowd of 22,446 Saturday night, that means there were more than 7,000 empty seats times $40 (approximate average ticket price). By our count, that's well over $250,000 in lost potential revenue. So another stinker from the home team last night would have been disastrous for reasons that go far beyond football, especially with four more home dates remaining in the 2009 season.

This is ultimately a business, after all, and for all the sideshow shenanigans that have characterized the season, it's the bottom line that is the Bombers' lifeblood. It's all fun and games until someone loses a season ticket, right?

Can one single victory over another equally challenged rival turn around the Bombers' fortunes? Absolutely not. It's going to take awhile.. That's why Bishop and Co.'s performance was so crucial. The tsunami-like tide of bad public relations was threatening to swallow the club whole. The anti-Kelly forces were growing exponentially. A witness relocation program for the beleaguered head coach was in the offing.

And that's the weird thing, frankly. Because while Kelly arrived in Winnipeg with the reputation of an offensive guru, rooted in his tenure as Bombers' offensive co-ordinator in the mid-1990s, it's as though the less he meddles in the X's and O's, the more this year's cast produces.

Bombers assistant Manny Matsakis is calling most of the shots now, and go figure -- the offence puts 29 points on the board.

Where did that come from?

Mostly, it came from Bishop. Look, from the get-go, Bishop, now 3-5 as a Bomber, has been referred to in this space as a Band-Aid.

That still stands.

But let the record show that when the Bombers, losing blood profusely, needed a Band-Aid most, Michael Bishop delivered.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

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