Steve Milton: An unusually early finish to Ticat home games
It's rare - as in pretty much never - that the Hamilton Tiger-Cats do not play a November game at Tim Hortons Field.
But when the Ticats host the Ottawa Redblacks Friday night (7 p.m.), it will be their final game in the city this year. Their regular season concludes a week from Saturday in Ottawa, and if they manage to make the playoffs, every one of those games would be on the road.
Outside of the pandemic-cancelled 2020 season, this will be only the second time since Ivor Wynne Stadium was dispatched to demolition crews in 2012 that the Tiger-Cats will not have a home playoff game. And even when they missed the playoffs in 2017, they played the final regular-season game at home in early November.
Not to get too Shakespearean here - although it has definitely been a theatrical season of dramatic highs and, more often, lows - but without November football in the east end, time is out of joint.
It's weird," agrees linebacker Simoni Lawrence, the longest-serving Ticat, who's been with the team since 2013.
After Friday night, head coach Orlondo Steinauer's crew must transition into road warriors, although they'll continue to practise at their home stadium until they are eliminated, either by a playoff loss or by failing to reach the playoffs.
We're aware this will be our last home game of the season," Steinauer says. Regardless of where we're at, home or on the road, we have to find a way to win the football game. The show has to end in one more point than they have."
Friday's show, which is Fan Appreciation Night and features numerous giveaways and another look at the new alternate brand steel grey uniforms, is a chance for the Ticats to get a firmer grip on a playoff spot that looked wretchedly out of reach after they had only three wins in their first 12 games.
But since then, Hamilton has won three of four, including resuscitating victories over Winnipeg and Calgary, the CFL's top two teams. Their past two wins, over Saskatchewan and Calgary, have not been pretty works of art, but a football stadium is not the Louvre: beauty is as beauty does, which is win.
The Ticats are riding a rebuilt and re-energized offensive line, some timely plays on defence, quarterback Dane Evans' improved confidence and the emergence of accurate place-kicker Seth Small as we'll-get-some-points mental insurance, to muscle through the kinds of disastrous moments that triggered most of their 10 losses.
In recent weeks, they have won: two in a row for the first time this season; on the road for the first time this season; and in Calgary for the first time in 18 years.
As a result, the Ticats are now 6-10, a mediocre record, true, but no longer horrendous, and find themselves in control of their own destiny.
They have the same record as the Saskatchewan Roughriders who must finish with a better record than the Ticats to qualify to cross over from the West and take the third playoff spot in the East. So in their final two games against the Redblacks, the Ticats must only match, or do better than, what the Riders do in their final two games against Calgary to finish third behind Toronto and Montreal.
Ottawa still has a faint hope clause, but at 4-12, must beat Hamilton twice and hope Saskatchewan loses twice. They turned the season's first-half corner at 1-8, but have been better in the second half, are a decent 4-4 overall on the road, and elevated special teams co-ordinator Bob Dyce to interim head coach three weeks ago after firing Paul LaPolice.
Ottawa came close to beating the Ticats at Tim Hortons Field in July when both teams were 0-4, but a last-minute field goal fell short. And they're a better team than they were then. So are the Ticats.
I think you always get a bump in energy when you make a coaching change," says Shawn Burke, who was with the Ticats in a variety of influential front-office roles from 2007 until Ottawa hired him last December. I think it's brought a breath of fresh air. As Bob talked about, our goal was to build a foundation during our last four games of competing for this year, winning as many games as possible, and seeing where the playoffs stack up, but more importantly to build the right tone of where we want this organization to go."
A number of talented Ticats followed Burke to Ottawa as free agents. Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, who was injured in early July and is out for the year, had been with the Ticats since 2013 and will be at the stadium Friday. He will be honoured with a first-quarter video tribute. Defensive lineman Lorenzo Mauldin IV, a 2019-21 Ticat, leads the entire CFL in quarterback sacks, receiver Jaelon Acklin, who had seven touchdown receptions in his two years here, is fourth in CFL receiving but will miss Friday with injury, three-year Ticat Darius Ciraco anchors an improving offensive line and Jackson Bennett is starting at running back.
A sellout crowd is expected for Friday night's affair, which includes a winter clothing drive on behalf of the Good Shepherd Centre. Donations of winter coats and warm clothes will be collected at the South Plaza entrance.
The Ticats will wear their third" uniforms for the second time this season and need a better result than the first time, on Canada Day, when the Edmonton Elks scooped up Evans' fumble for the winning touchdown in the final two minutes.
The uniforms are loaded with Made in the Hammer" symbols. Steinauer says they're a salute to the city, the community and the Ticats, and the players are pumped up about wearing them.
I think everybody's bought into it," he said. It's more than just a shirt, it's a way of life and I think it's outstanding to pay tribute to it.
But at the end of the day, we have to scale it back as players and coaches and understand that we have to go out there and execute."
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com