Always look on the bright side

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2011 (5115 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This one has to sting, right?

Having a 23-point deficit fall short on the one-inch line can’t be easy to wake up to, but that’s what the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (8-5) are having with their breakfast this morning. Dropping a 32-26 decision to the Montreal Alouettes (8-5) at Canad Inns Stadium is tough to take — especially when one considers the first-place implications and the struggles of the last month — but the taste of Friday night is especially bitter.

Close but no cigar. It almost feels like shades of 2010, doesn’t it?

“I don’t think anybody thought we had a chance in this game,” head coach Paul LaPolice said. “Before the game, right? And in the third quarter of this game, and in the start of the fourth quarter, and halfway through the fourth quarter….”

LaPolice didn’t understand the question. He thought the query was a comparison of his team last season — the one that dropped nine heartbreaking games by four points of less. It wasn’t, though. The question was: does the loss feel the same as one from last year?

“It’s a disappointing loss, I’ll say that.”

Disappointing is how this one went into the Friday sleep but the Blue and Gold are taking a lot of positives out of the comeback. Resiliency, determination, trust — those were some of the words used by players in the room after the game, a loss that has the Bombers holding one win in September after a 7-1 start to the summer.

Those wins, though they seem so distant now, are what the players are using to get through this slide, so Friday’s loss? Totally different.

“It doesn’t feel the same at all, when I start thinking about it,” safety Ian Logan said. “Earlier in the season (last year), we were losing. Now, we’re past that sense of defeat. We’ve won enough games this year to know that we have a good team and that we can recover from something like this.”

THE BIG PLAY: For Montreal, the turning point was stopping the Bombers on two goal-line chances with the game in the balance. For Winnipeg, it came from James Green, who shot through the line late in the third quarter and blocked a Sean Whyte punt. Henoc Muamba scooped up the loose ball and ran it back 52-yards for the Bombers first touchdown.

Down 29-6, it was the shot in the arm the Bombers were looking for.

“I was just thinking in my head, ‘This game is not over, this is the CFL, we still have lots of time to do something here,'” Green said. “I knew I had an opening to get through; I just had to get it.

“I came close twice,” he added. “I just missed the second one.”

Green has two punt blocks in his career. Friday’s and one in 2009 (as a rookie with Toronto). Strangely, they both came against Whyte.

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A PENNY SAVED: Looking for Bombers to be sending cheques to the CFL offices for disparaging remarks about the officiating? Don’t bother.

Everyone was on their best behaviour after the game, saying all the right things about referee Al Bradbury’s crew and some of the decisions that were made. Thirty-four penalties for 361 yards: that was the orange handkerchief impact Friday night.

Perhaps they felt fortunate that a pass interference call set them up to win the game at the one-yard line. Or perhaps they were told to bite their tongues. “They’re going to call what they want to call,” defensive back Jonathan Hefney said.

“I think they did a fine job, there were a couple calls here and there, but it went both ways,” said offensive tackle Glenn January, grinning through well-chosen words.

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @wazoowazny