Oh, so that’s what losing feels like

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This article was published 28/09/2016 (3298 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week’s loss to the Calgary Stampeders, ending a seven-game winning streak, was a bitter pill the Winnipeg Blue Bombers don’t want to swallow again.

“I’m even more hungry now,” said Bombers offensive lineman Jermarcus Hardrick after Wednesday’s practice. “It woke us up a little bit more… it let us know we can lose and we didn’t like that. We’re going to take that into Friday.”

 When the 8-5 Bombers returned to Investors Group Field Tuesday for the start of another week of practise, players had little interest in revisiting what happened in Calgary. And even fewer words.

“Just moving past it,” quarterback Matt Nichols told reporters.

A day later, the mood seemed lighter as players spoke more freely.

Perhaps the shift in emotion was because the Bombers had already moved on from the game, their minds now focused on the Edmonton Eskimos, who they play Friday night at home. Or maybe with what happened in Calgary, a positive has finally risen from the pain. Or both.

“This is the stretch run, this is where you want to be playing your best football,” said defensive end Jamaal Westerman. “The teams that are playing their best ball can continue to rise to that level, rise to the occasion.”

With only five regular-season games left, and a tight Western Division race sure to go to the wire, whether it’s the loss to Calgary or the prospect of beating Edmonton — which the Bombers did to kick off the win streak — what rallies the team doesn’t matter. As long as something does. 

To do that, the Bombers will have to find a way to bottle whatever it was that was working for them when they went undefeated for close to two months. They might have to dig even deeper.

“It’s a time of year where the intensity picks up,” said receiver Clarence Denmark. “You have to make less mistakes.”

Only four points separate second and fourth place in the West, with the Bombers and B.C. Lions (8-4) both at 16 points and the Eskimos (6-7) not far behind with 12. The Eskimos are coming off a win over the Lions Friday, in what was B.C.’s second loss in seven games.

A loss for the Bombers this week and the Eskimos are right on their heels.

“I don’t think it’s a rallying point but it’s definitely a game we want to win, definitely a game we think we can win,” said Westerman.

After Edmonton, the Bombers wrap up the schedule with an unorthodox pair of back-to-back games against the Lions followed by the Ottawa Redblacks.

Though a difficult stretch to the finish line, the Bombers’ success this year has put them in full control of their destiny. If they can win out the rest of the season they’re guaranteed to finish, at the very least, in second place in the West.

Bombers coach Mike O’Shea, who played 16 seasons in the CFL as a middle linebacker, said he doesn’t see the difference from the start of the year and now. It’s a sentiment he’s instilled in his players throughout his three years in Winnipeg: the only game that matter is the next one.

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“If you can put more energy into one game’s preparation than the next then you’re cheating — you’re cheating the system, you’re cheating your teammates,” said O’Shea. “You got to be able to prepare on a consistent basis week in and week out no matter what the game.”

Where they sit in the standings, the players insist, hasn’t changed anything. In fact, it’s the least of their worries.

“Truthfully, I’m not exactly sure where we sit, who we need to beat, who is in front of us,” said Westerman. “You don’t want to be checking standings. You really just want to be beating everybody. At the end of the day, if you win, everything will take care of itself.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.catwitter: @jeffkhamilton

Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer

Jeff Hamilton is a sports and investigative reporter. Jeff joined the Free Press newsroom in April 2015, and has been covering the local sports scene since graduating from Carleton University’s journalism program in 2012. Read more about Jeff.

Every piece of reporting Jeff produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.