Like a greased pigskin

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/07/2010 (5636 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was like a jailbreak, an angry mass of men running with only one purpose, but with no real direction or course.

Or maybe it’s more akin to that scene in Rocky II, when the slow-footed Sylvester Stallone tries to run down a chicken in some Philadelphia vacant lot while the crotchety Burgess Meredith barks at him. Just when it looks like Rocky has a bead on the bird, the fowl darts to the left or to the right, escaping the pursuit for the time being.

That’s pretty close to what happened in the north end zone at Canad Inns Stadium Friday night.

Towards the conclusion of the second quarter, Hamilton rookie Justin Palardy saw a punt blocked on the Tiger-Cats 37-yard line. The resulting pandemonium, where players from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the visiting Ticats made a mad dash in hopes of corralling the loose ball for a rare special teams touchdown, is where things start to disintegrate.

"Everything happens so fast when a punt gets blocked," said Bomber special-teamer Pierre-Luc Labbe, the earnest soul who eventually tucked the ball away for a major that gave Winnipeg a 15-point lead at the half.

The home side went on to beat their East Division rivals 49-29 in the 2010 regular-season opener.

"I thought one of the Hamilton guys had a chance on it, but he tried to knock it out of the end zone," continued Labbe, who said his touchdown only partially made up for a comedy of errors by the Winnipeg special teams unit. "I could have been right beside the ball and still missed it. When you think you have a shot on it, that’s usually when something happens and you miss it.

"It’s part luck, part practice."

How one practises locking in on the unpredictable bounce a football offers amidst the company of other large men is for another day. It is a skill that seems next to impossible to prepare for — training that would be as useless as a guidebook for catching a greased pig with butter-soaked hands.

"Everybody is yelling ‘Ball! Ball!’ Everyone is running around with their eyes wide open, like they think they can get to it," Labbe said. "It is pretty fun sometimes — especially when you end up on top of it."

The Bomber player who caused the football scramble was Brady Browne, who correctly read the zone protection scheme on the Hamilton side and barged through uninterrupted. He blasted by the centre and then jumped past the final block to get a hand on the slowly delivered punt.

"We needed a big play," Browne said. "We let the guys down with our coverage early in the game and it was embarrassing. I cannot describe what a letdown that was. We wanted to make a huge play at the end (of the half) and we were fortunate to be able to."

Browne missed most of the frantic action following the block, though. By the time he lifted himself off the ground, the race was already underway and he found himself more of a cheerleader at the conclusion of the madness.

"I wasn’t really in there. By the time I got up, things were already in the end zone," he said. "I looked up and I was like, ‘Come on, guys. Get this ball!’ I saw Pierre-Luc jump on it at the end… so that was perfect.

"That’s exactly what we needed there."

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca