Watching players who have just lost a championship game clean out their lockers is a depressing sight. And that’s just bearing witness. Being one of those players and feeling what they feel is something that even the most passionate fans cannot fully appreciate.
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Football commentator Cris Collinsworth, a former Cincinnati Bengals receiver, said, “Losing a Super Bowl is a life sentence.” It’s a powerful statement and can be extrapolated to any high-level sport. Whether it’s game seven of the Stanley Cup final or World Series, a playoff at the Masters or a Grey Cup, the pain of the losses remains long after the joy of winning.
Wayne Gretzky once said that the joy of winning doesn’t last all that long but the sting of losing remains until you win again.
Many teams have lost back-to-back Grey Cup games. Some franchises have swallowed that bitter pill more than once. But in the modern era of our beloved Canadian Football League only two teams have lost the contest for Earl Grey’s trophy three years in a row.
The Winnipeg Sun’s Daily Headline News
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The first to suffer the indignity was the Montreal Alouettes of the mid-1950s, coached by Frank (Peahead) Walker. The Als dropped the ’54, ’55 and ’56 Grey Cup games to the Edmonton Eskimos. (Yes, that’s what the team was called.) It has taken 68 years for another team to suffer that same pain.
The Bombers have been the dominant CFL team for the past six years. They’ve been to five straight Cups, winning the first two and narrowly dropping the next two before getting thumped in the 4th quarter by Toronto last Sunday.
There’s no shame in those losses. The team began 0-4 and went to 2-6 before taking over first place in the west. A team doesn’t pull that off unless it is made up of exceptional people and this one surely is.
But, as is always the case, it won’t be made up of the same people next season. The off-season evaluation will begin and all of the appropriate questions will be asked. Was it just the finger injury to Zack Collaros? Was it that the League’s best player didn’t get the ball often enough, especially after it was clear the future Hall of Fame quarterback couldn’t throw effectively? Was it a problem on the defensive side of the ball? Was it that fumble on a punt return? Was it the absence of some key players due to injury?
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All of those questions and dozens more, will be examined in depth by the top brass. These are men who know what they are doing. They’ve proven themselves and there’s every reason to believe they’ll find the correct responses and come back next year with a strong club, ready to contend once again for a championship.
Loyalty to veteran players is an admirable trait but it can also get coaches fired. There may be some difficult choices regarding some of the team’s older players.
The 2025 Grey Cup Game will be played in Winnipeg so there’ll be pressure to get back to that game. Only once in the modern era has a team been there six years in a row. That was Edmonton, which lost its first trip before rattling off a CFL record five straight from 1978-82.
The pain of this latest loss will linger for the organisation and for the fabulous fans of this team. And, at the risk of tossing this old chestnut out too early in the mourning process “Don’t be sad because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
Thanks for another great run, Bombers.
— Geoff Currier is a former Winnipeg broadcaster.
Have thoughts on what’s going on in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada or across the world? Send us a letter to the editor at wpgsun.letters@kleinmedia.ca.
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