Pressure builds on Blue

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This article was published 04/06/2011 (5552 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers open training camp on Sunday with a sense of urgency not entirely of their own making.

After a 4-14 season in 2010, there was never any doubt that more was going to be expected this season — much more, in fact — from Bombers GM Joe Mack and head coach Paul LaPolice.

The two men enjoyed a first-year honeymoon of sorts last season, with most Bombers fans willing to give the duo lots of leeway as they attempted the unenviable task of rebuilding this team, yet again, from the ground up.

The honeymoon is now over, however, and Mack and LaPolice will be held to a much higher standard this season on the merits of a team that is now truly their own.

And those demands from fans for accountability will be backed by the better part of a couple of hundred million dollars in taxpayer money being piled on the grounds of the University of Manitoba this year in the form of a shiny new stadium for the Bombers, set to open next summer.

That’s the backdrop.

And then there is that sense of urgency, a countdown clock that began ticking the moment Mark Chipman stepped to the podium at the MTS Centre on Tuesday to announce the monopoly the Bombers have enjoyed on fan support and media attention in this town for the past 15 years has officially — and spectacularly — come to an end.

The Bombers have benefited immeasurably in recent years from being the only game in town after Labour Day.

As the kids headed back to school, the team could limp into the second half of the CFL season with a 2-7 record — as they did last year — and still be confident of fans in the seats and blanket media coverage into November.

But try something like that this year — with Winnipeg’s NHL team set to open training camp in September and then the regular season in October — and there will be tumbleweeds blowing across the parking lot at Winnipeg Stadium come the fall.

LaPolice, for one, is confident that won’t happen with a 2011 team he believes is improved over last year’s outfit and with which he has a much better familiarity heading into Year 2.

“We know this team more this year,” LaPolice said Friday. “We know who to put at right guard on punting, we know who to put at the field slot because we have a better understanding of them under fire… Anytime you have more knowledge of people’s strengths and weaknesses — what they can do — there’s more of a comfort level.

“We like the talent better. We absolutely like the talent better. But it’s not just talent — it’s character and hard work. And that’s the next part — making sure they’re character and hard work guys.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

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