Glenn-fiddich

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Stamps QB Kevin Glenn has a chance to do with Calgary what he couldn't do with the Blue Bombers in 2007 when he fractured his forearm in the divisional final. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)

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Kevin Glenn (CP)

It took exiled Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Paul LaPolice to encapsulate the poetic symmetry of the moment.

"Kevin Glenn," LaPolice mused on his Twitter account on Thursday, "missed a grey cup because of (a) fractured arm and now he gets to start in a West Final because of a fractured arm. #huh."

Winnipeg Blue Bombers fans will well recall -- for all the wrong reasons --the Grey Cup Glenn missed when he broke his arm in the dying minutes of a Bombers win over Toronto in the 2007 East final and had to watch from the sidelines as the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeated the Bombers and backup Ryan Dinwiddie in the big game.

And so, as LaPolice insinuated, there was a certain redemptive quality this week to the news that Glenn will get the start for the Calgary Stampeders this Sunday when they take on the B.C. Lions at BC Place in the West final. Glenn was on the bench for Calgary's dramatic win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders in last weekend's West semifinal but got elevated to starter this week when it emerged that last week's starter, Drew Tate, fractured his forearm against Saskatchewan.

The week's events will be of particular interest in Winnipeg, where Free Press sports columnist Gary Lawless has reported the Bombers brain trust is interested in bringing Glenn back to Winnipeg for the 2013 season.

Now, you can all argue the relative merits of bringing Glenn back to Winnipeg -- five years after he was run out of town -- as at least a partial solution to Winnipeg's seemingly never-ending quarterback problems.

But what no one can argue is that this week's developments in Calgary have already significantly raised the price of bringing Glenn to Winnipeg via a trade, regardless of how he performs in the West final. And that's because with his second major injury in just his first season as Calgary's supposed starting quarterback, Tate is rapidly getting a reputation for being as accident prone as Winnipeg's Buck Pierce.

Perhaps that's unfair. Maybe the separated shoulder that Tate suffered in Week 2 which kept him out of the lineup for 14 games this season was just as isolated an incident as the fractured forearm he suffered last week, rather than the first glimpse into a pattern of fragility.

But Calgary head coach and GM John Hufnagel cannot take the chance and so will be decidedly reluctant this off-season to part with a backup who went 10-5 as a starter in Tate's absence this year.

Glenn's price tag will simply rise further if he somehow beats the heavily favoured Lions this weekend. And Glenn would become darn near priceless if he somehow led the Stamps to a Grey Cup title next weekend in Toronto.

Layered on top of all that is a likely CFL expansion draft following the 2013 season -- at which time the existing eight teams will be allowed to protect only one quarterback apiece to allow the new Ottawa franchise a chance to get started.

Put it all together and it seems that if Bombers management was thinking Glenn might be an easy fix to their quarterback problems next season, that fix just got a whole lot harder this week.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 17, 2012 C3