The time for talking is over, baby

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/07/2010 (5638 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OK, let’s get down to some unfinished business.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers will open their 80th season tonight, and in all those years arguably only a handful of debuts have carried more weight.

And no one has to be reminded of that significance on Maroons Road.

“This is like we’re expecting a baby,” Bombers rookie president Jim Bell said. “We’re waiting to see what we’re getting.”

Who isn’t? Because it’s not as though tickets have been flying off the shelves in anticipation, with around 24,000 sold as of Thursday afternoon and Bell, fingers crossed, hoping that the final tally to be in the 26,000-27,000 range.

Sure, it’s a long weekend. But it’s also an evening for Bombers greats from Bud Tinsley to Dieter Brock to Bud Grant to bask in the glow of the franchise they helped build, and the unveiling of Paul LaPolice’s rebuilt squad helmed by a fresh, proven face in quarterback Buck Pierce.

Which brings us back to Bell, who now occupies the office held the last decade by the commanding presence of Lyle Bauer. Across the way, in the Bombers football lair, LaPolice is settling in under the guidance of new GM Joe Mack.

That’s a lot of fresh meat, folks. And it’s a reminder of just how rudderless this franchise was only a few months ago, back in November, with Mike Kelly unceremoniously fired and Bauer resigning after a turbulent season laid waste by controversy, severe financial distress and some really lousy football.

So clearly, in all the professed optimism of an awaiting season, a level of cautiousness remains among the faithful.

“Is there a segment out there that says, ‘I want to see what happens before I come back because the memories of last year are still vivid?’ Fair ball,” Bell noted. “(But) I think the football community has bought into the Bombers again. They were frustrated. We took a downturn last year in several ways. But I think they’re ready to embrace us again. Now it’s time for us to pay them a dividend and give them some exciting football.”

The final two words of Bell’s assessment can’t be understated. Because civility and good intentions can only get you so far. And the unfortunate circus of last season is ancient history. Nobody has Kelly to kick around anymore.

In other words, whatever baby comes out screaming on Friday night, we all know who the fathers are.

Hence the enormous importance for this new Bombers regime to begin recovering the money and reputation that so damaged the Bombers brand — a dire momentum shift that started in the wake of last September’s gob smacking 55-10 Banjo Bowl loss to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Up until that fateful day, the Bombers were averaging 28,000 fans. That figure fell immediately to 22,500. That represented several hundred thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Just as devastating financially, the club’s souvenir sales plummeted.

“It’s like somebody put a pin in a balloon,” recalled Bell, the Bombers financial watchman last year. “Now that kept me up at night.”

Since the front office house cleaning, however, season ticket sales have rebounded to around 18,000, up about 300 from 2009. The corporate community has been lured back on board. Those two factors in themselves are promising, if not critical.

But in order for the Bombers to seriously alter their lot in CFL life — regardless of all the public relations damage control and fan-friendly rhetoric — the team has to make a statement on the field, and fast. To that end, the incoming Hamilton Tiger-Cats — who mercifully ended the Bombers lost campaign last October — will be the ideal litmus test.

So needless to say, the nervous energy coming out of Canad Inns Stadium tonight will be of the maternity ward pacing variety, and that’s not just the president counting the crowd and doing the monetary math in his head.

It will emanate from Mack, who went outside the box to hire LaPolice to put some meat on the Bombers offensive bones. It will come from Pierce, who has been anointed as the Bombers talisman. And it will flow from the Bombers still-wary fan base, whether they personally witness tonight’s opener or not.

As Bell noted, “All the dress rehearsals are over. It’s show time.”

And when the curtain rises for the 80th time, the pressure to deliver has rarely been more acute.

After all, if the 2010 debut is synonymous with a birth, and the uncertain future that lies ahead, then it’s in the Bombers best interest to heed the famous mantra of Oakland Raiders mercurial owner Al Davis, and the sooner the better.

Just win, baby.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

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