Home is where the wins are

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2015 (3734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the overlooked subplots amid the highs and (mostly) lows of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ season is for all the struggles of this 4-9 team, they have actually been decent at home.

While Winnipeg once again has a losing record at Investors Group Field — they’re 3-4 heading into their next-to-last regular-season home game Saturday against the Edmonton Eskimos — a few things are worth noting.

First, while 3-4 is not exactly something to write home to Vince Lombardi about, when you consider this same Bombers franchise was 1-8 at home in their inaugural season at IGF in 2013 and 3-6 at home last year, it is at least the beginnings of progress.

Second, compared to Winnipeg’s 1-5 record on the road this year, their performance at home in 2015 has been pretty competitive.

And third, even Winnipeg’s losses at home this season came with explanations, if not necessarily excuses.

Consider: Winnipeg’s first home loss this season — 52-26 to Hamilton in Week 2 — saw the Ticats blow open a tight 10-7 game only after Bombers QB Drew Willy went down (on an illegal hit, no less).

Then there was the tight 27-20 home loss to the Toronto Argonauts in August in which Robert Marve was at the controls.

And then there were the two losses to Calgary at home. Winnipeg got blown out in the first one — 36-8 Aug. 29 — although it’s worth noting they trailed just 8-3 at halftime of that one. And finally, there was last Friday’s 25-23 loss to the Stamps, which will forever be remembered by Bombers Nation as the one where the Bombers were robbed by a bogus illegal-procedure call late in the game.

Yeah — coulda, shoulda, woulda, didn’t. But with any kind of luck this season other than bad, maybe a couple of those home losses are wins and everything is much brighter in Bombers Nation today.

Indeed, if you’re looking for one common denominator in those four losses at home, it’s that Willy was absent entirely for three of them and didn’t finish the game in the only other one. And that has been the story of this entire Bombers season — a club that is 3-1 when Willy has started and finished a game in 2015 is 1-8 in all the others.

The point is this: for the first time since the Bombers opened their shiny new taxpayer-funded football palace, this team is finally starting to take meaningful advantage of a rabid crowd and unique stadium acoustics that combine to create what just about everyone in the CFL agrees is the loudest crowd in Canada.

And that brings us to this Saturday’s matinee date with the Eskimos.

With just two home dates remaining in their regular-season schedule — and an opening-weekend win in Regina over the woeful Saskatchewan Roughriders still their only road victory this season — the Bombers need to take fullest advantage of being at home this weekend if they’re going to stay in the playoff hunt.

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Winnipeg is on the road for three of their final four regular-season games. They’re in Vancouver on Oct. 10 for what looks to be an absolutely critical contest against the B.C. Lions and then in Ottawa the following weekend to take on the Redblacks. Winnipeg then returns home to face Ottawa Oct. 24 before getting a bye week then finishing the season Nov. 6 in Toronto.

How many fans turn up at IGF Saturday remains to be seen. Just 23,113 were announced Friday for that ill-fated game against the Stamps — the second-smallest Bombers crowd in the history of Investors Group Field.

Team officials say they’re expecting roughly the same crowd Saturday for the Eskimos. While that’s not great, the Bombers still boast the fourth-highest average attendance in the CFL (27,537) this season, behind only West Division rivals Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Calgary.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek