Riders' blunder, Alouettes' gift 13th man costs Saskatchewan the Grey Cup

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Montreal kicker Damon Duval boots the game-winning field goal, just moments after a too-many-men penalty by Saskatchewan erased his missed field goal that would have made the Riders the CFL champs. (JEFF MCINTOSH / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

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The loss begins to sink in after the game for Saskatchewan's Sean Lucas. (LEAH HENNEL / CANWEST NEWS SERVICE)

CALGARY -- It was far from a masterful performance, but with a few dramatic splashes of paint, the Montreal Alouettes managed to finish the masterpiece that was their 2009 campaign with the flair of Rembrandt and Picasso combined.

And they needed every last second of the 97th Grey Cup -- and a major screw-up by the Saskatchewan Roughriders -- to frame the deal in a 28-27 victory in front of 46,020 at McMahon Stadium Sunday night.

In one of the most thrilling finishes in the game's history -- and an absolutely crushing finale for the diehards in Rider Nation -- Alouettes kicker Damon Duval had two cracks at immortality on the final play. Duval missed on a 43-yarder as time expired but got a second chance when the Riders were penalized for having too many men on the field. Then he nailed the subsequent 33-yarder for the title.

"I just looked up and thanked the man upstairs for a second chance," said Duval. "I'm so happy for this entire organization. For A.C. (Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo), Bryan Chiu... all the guys that have been here. The talk about walking out of here with one Grey Cup in seven tries for those guys... To give them a great note to possibly go out on, I can't even explain it. It's the best feeling in the world."

The win is the Alouettes' second in this decade and the sixth championship in franchise history (1949, 1970, 1974, 1977, 2002, 2009). It also ends their Grey Cup losing streak of four games and validates a dominant franchise that had averaged a dozen wins a season since returning to Montreal from Baltimore in 1996.

Calvillo, the CFL Most Outstanding Player, was brilliant in the game's final moments.

With less than a minute remaining and Montreal on their own 34-yard line, he connected with Jamel Richardson for 23 yards and Kerry Watkins for 17 to give Duval his shots.

"I'm overwhelmed," said Calvillo. "You work so hard to come down to a finish like that. For us to miss the field goal, them have too many guys and give us another chance... it's probably destiny for this year."

The Riders, meanwhile, were denied their second championship in three years by a colossal mistake. Special-teams coach Kavis Reed took the blame for the too-many-men infraction and wouldn't point fingers afterward, but Saskatchewan apparently had a block called on Duval's first kick and stacked 12 men on the line of scrimmage knowing that the Als, down by two, couldn't win or tie with a miss. But in a breakdown of communication, return man Jason Armstead went into the end zone when he should have stayed on the sideline.

"Forgive me, but I just can't put that into words right now," said a despondent Rider head coach Ken Miller afterward. "There was a lack of communication. The disappointment is going to last with each one of us as long as we're on this planet.

"We thought we had won the football game." Among the pertinent storylines that played out in the course of the 97th Grey Cup:

* The Alouettes overcame a 16-point deficit with just 11 minutes remaining, outscoring the Riders 17-0 in the final 10 minutes for the victory with TDs by MVP Avon Cobourne, capped by a two-point convert by Kerry Carter and another score by Cahoon before Duval's final kick.

* Montreal managed to rack up 409 yards total offence despite having six punts -- one a miserable seven-yarder -- two fumbles and one field goal in their nine first-half possessions.

"We were embarrassed by what happened in the first half," said Als centre Bryan Chiu. "We just came back one play at a time and won the game."

"ö The Riders, 15-1 when leading at the half over the last two years, spoiled what had been a brilliant performance by their team, highlighted by the work of offensive co-ordinator Paul LaPolice and defensive boss Gary Etcheverry.

* Consider this: The Als, 15-3 in the regular season and 2-0 in the playoffs, could very well have been 19-1 this season. One of their losses came to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers minus Calvillo and the other after a botched referee's call robbed them of the game-winning TD in Vancouver.

In a pre-game speech that foreshadowed the outcome, Alouettes head coach Marc Trestman reminded his troops that their 15-3 record in the regular season "entitles us to what?" before his team yelled: "Nothing!"

And then they went out and battled until there were zeroes on the clock.

"Football is a very tough business and there are a lot of highs and lows along the way," he said. "I just said in our locker-room, credit to the Riders. This is a championship game in the truest sense. These two teams battled each other... At the end of the day, our guys continued to believe and fought.

"And then Lady Luck came into play."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Quarter-by-quarter scores

1st 2nd 3rd Final

Montreal (E) 0 3 10 28

Saskatchewan (W) 10 17 20 27

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 30, 2009 C1