Bomb Squad must keep an even keel

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/07/2010 (5876 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Terrence Edwards has been in Winnipeg long enough to know how the needle bounces.

You win one week, and you’re the toast of the town. People are so jazzed about your football club, they even let you into traffic — no matter how competitive or frustrating the rush-hour crawl through construction is. Lose the next week, though, and you’re on your own. You might be stuck on the side of the road for hours. Heck, you might not want to even cross the street in your own neighbourhood, for fear of an ‘accidental’ brake malfunction.

But that’s the life of the Blue and Gold in this fickle town. For every Grey Cup parade metaphor thrown out there, a resulting loss inspires an over-correction of negativity towards the product. Message boards begin to hum about roster changes. Up and down, up and down…

Edwards, a veteran Bomber receiver of four years, knows the extremes of public opinion come with the territory.

"Look, it’s the second game of the year," Edwards said following Winnipeg’s curious 36-34 loss to the Toronto Argonauts Friday. "Don’t over-react after the first game and don’t over-react because of this loss. We have 16 more games to go, a lot can happen and I’m confident that we’ll win more of those than we’ll lose.

"We have a lot of work to do, of course… I just don’t want people to over-react."

While the club can do little to curb the enthusiasm of the jersey-wearing, beer cup-stacking masses in the stands, navigating the peaks and valleys within the locker-room is on the long list of things the Bombers are trying to tackle this season. Take five minutes with head coach Paul LaPolice, and you’ll be hard pressed to detect any hint of misplaced confidence or rebel exasperation in the conversation following a win or a loss. It’s about controlled emotion this year, a strategy designed to fit not only the mental makeup of the new coaching staff but one to distance themselves from the loose cannons of recent history.

Don’t get too high. And don’t hit rock-bottom.

More importantly, don’t start reading your own clippings.

Surprisingly, as he sifted through the ashes of the loss with members of the media Saturday, the coach admitted he wasn’t looking at the Argos loss as a positive for the bigger picture. It wasn’t a reminder of not taking things for granted, nor was it a mental reset for a few of the younger, more inexperienced players. Any semblance of education gleamed on the mental side of a player’s preparation, he says, shouldn’t have been a part of the overall learning curve at this stage, and he almost scoffed at the suggestion that a loss now can do wonders for the future mindset.

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LaPolice wants his players dialed into a week-to-week station, where a win one week is only a win that week, and any positive feelings about it should be left at home before considering the next game.

Veterans on the club believe that’s exactly how this team will operate this season, and say any notion of over-confidence against the Argos — and there are some out there who believe that’s the trap the Bombers fell into after a successful debut against Hamilton — is simply clichéd sporting fiction.

"I don’t think anybody had that air about them," safety Shawn Gallant said. "The coaches made sure that we practiced harder (for Toronto) than we did the week before. It’s just one of those games and it is definitely a good thing that it happened early in the season.

"It gets us back on track."

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca