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Canwest News Service
MONTREAL – The whooping and hollering had barely died down as the Montreal Alouettes booked their trip to the 97th Grey Cup game with Sunday's stirring 56-18 victory over the B.C. Lions when the questions began for quarterback Anthony Calvillo.
To whit: "Are you ready for the questions?"
"I know what questions," Calvillo said. "Believe me, I know."
He should. He's had enough practice.
Sunday's win in the East final before 53,792 raucous fans at Olympic Stadium means the Alouettes are bound to the Grey Cup game for the seventh time since 2000, an almost-annual trip that has so far yielded only a single championship, when the Als beat the Eskimos in Edmonton in 2002 for their only CFL title of this era.
That game, Calvillo said, was probably his worst Grey Cup performance. "I think I completed something like 35 per cent of my passes, but we won. Other times, I've been up around 70, 75 per cent completions and we lost. It seems like it always comes down to one or two big plays."
Not Sunday. This one was a thorough, old-fashioned butt-whupping. The Lions couldn't block the Alouettes, couldn't tackle them, couldn't protect their quarterback. Couldn't do much of anything, in fact, except look on as the score pin-wheeled from the sublime to the ridiculous.
It was a thorough demolition of a good B.C. team, performed by one of the most dominant squads in CFL history, a group that is now 16-3 under second-year coach Marc Trestman, in a magical season that requires only one last bit of magic to be complete.
Coming into this East final, the story line was supposed to be talented B.C. quarterback Casey Printers, the comeback kid who helped the Lions turn their season around. They key, everyone said, was that the Alouettes had to contain Printers.
Before the game was a quarter old, however, the story was veteran Montreal quarterback Calvillo and the fact that the Lions could not contain him at all.
In what was arguably the finest big-game performance of his Hall of Fame career, Calvillo passed for 302 yards and tied a CFL playoff record with five touchdown passes (four in the first half alone) before leaving the game with three minutes to play.
While Calvillo was out chasing records, Printers was being chased. And rushed, sacked, harried, bashed, pummelled and humbled.
The Alouettes were so dominant so early, their jittery supporters barely had time to worry. Alouette fans are like a guy with a house built on the edge of a cliff – they enjoy the view, but they keep expecting the fall. This year, the Als are simply too good.
There will be no opportunity for revenge after the Calgary Stampeders beat the Als here to win the Grey Cup last year. Instead the Alouettes will meet a very good Saskatchewan Roughriders team, 27-17 victors over Calgary in the West final Sunday.
But if what we saw Sunday is any indication, the Alouettes are simply too powerful to lose. Every time the Lions asked a question, the Alouettes had the answer. A sequence in the second quarter Sunday was a perfect game capsule.
First, Alouettes cornerback Davis Sanchez caught Lions receiver Emmanuel Arceneaux defying gravity to catch a pass. Arceneaux was about as high as you can go when Sanchez hit him low. Arceneaux's sickening fall ended with a one- point landing, his helmet flying off as his head hit the turf and his neck snapped back.
Arceneaux, mercifully, was unhurt. But the hit meant that B.C., already trailing 24-3, had to punt. Larry Taylor, Montreal's usually dependable kick returner, fumbled the punt.
Just like that, the Lions had a chance to take their Grey Cup hopes off life support. Printers hit Paris Jackson in the end zone and it was 24-10 and for just about the time it takes to go for a hot dog, it looked like this might turn into a football game.
But on Montreal's next possession, Calvillo drove his team 70 yards in three plays, completing his fourth touchdown pass of the afternoon, a 45-yarder to Brian Bratton to make it 31-10.
B.C. threatened one last time to turn it into a game again when Ryan Grice- Mullen returned a Damon Duval punt 106 yards for a touchdown to pull the Lions to within 31-18. Again, Calvillo calmly drove the Alouettes 73 yards downfield and completed his fifth touchdown pass of the day on a spectacular catch by Bratton to put Montreal ahead 38-18 and unleash the party hounds.
Even the most pessimistic Montreal fans knew the Lions were not going to come back from a 20-point deficit, not against a defence that can shut you down like an unpaid Hydro bill.
This is, as people have been saying all week, the most complete team the Alouettes have ever had, beginning with the quarterback who will surely be named the CFL's most outstanding player as part of the festivities next weekend.
During the off-season, Calvillo said, he enlisted the help of two personal trainers who altered both his training program and his diet. The result is a leaner, meaner quarterback.
"Last year," he said, "I was exhausted after games. Right now, I feel like I could go out and play another game."
For the Saskatchewan Roughriders, that is very bad news.
Calvillo's perspective on the Grey Cup, delivered before he knew which opponent the Alouettes would face, was this: "If we go out and play our type of game, it should not be close. We've talked about being the Beast of the CFL. Now we have to go out and prove it."
There is no such thing as a lock in the wild and wacky world of the Canadian Football League. But this one? It's as close as you get.
Montreal Gazette
jacktodd46@yahoo.com
