Photo: Samantha Keen/3DownNation. All rights reserved.
CFL fans may want to circle Saturday, October 3 on the calendar, as that’s the next time the Montreal Alouettes and Winnipeg Blue Bombers are scheduled to play one another.
Despite not being in the same division, these two teams seem to have developed quite the rivalry. Tempers flared on Friday night when they met at Princess Auto Stadium, and Alouettes franchise quarterback Davis Alexander confirmed there’s no love lost between the two clubs.
“It was like a playoff atmosphere in there. They wanted it bad, we wanted it bad. The teams don’t like each other, obviously, it’s pretty clear, so it was a playoff atmosphere. At least for some of the game, I let the emotions probably get the best of me. I’ll learn from it, and it’ll never happen again,” Alexander told the media on Tuesday.
“I play with fire and I play with passion, and a lot of the time it does benefit us and it benefits me, but if I can’t control it and some other things end up pissing me off, and it takes me out of my game even a little bit, there’s no excuse. I definitely learned a ton.”
The 27-year-old declined to expand on what made him feel so frustrated during the game, though it appears to have been penalty-related, as he admitted he talked to the officials “probably way more than (he) should have.”
Both teams were penalized six times during the game, three of which were taken by Winnipeg offensive lineman Patrick Neufeld.
The veteran blocker was called for piling on in the first half and unnecessary roughness in the second half. He explained postgame that he was looking to play “on the edge” against a defence that “get(s) after people.”
Neufeld got full support from Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea, who took no issue with the extracurricular penalties and complimented the physicality of his team’s offensive line postgame.
Alexander was not made available to the media after the game was over. Though he regrets not fulfilling his media obligations, he seems pleased to have saved himself from a potential fine.
“I think I would have said something that probably would have gotten me in trouble, being 100 percent honest. I was running pretty hot,” said Alexander.
“That was definitely my bad. I can’t do that. Even the emotions of the game, I do run hot, and that’s how I play, and that’s how I’ll be forever. The coaches told me not to change, and that’s how I’ll be, but I do think it might have affected me a little bit more than it ever has before.
“It was a great learning experience for me. It can’t ever happen again, and I definitely feel like I did let my team down a little bit, and I didn’t play well enough for us to win that game.”
The Blue Bombers won the contest 44-28, handing Montreal just its second loss of the regular-season. It was the first meeting between the two teams since last year’s East Semi-Final, which the Alouettes won 42–33 at Percival Molson Stadium.
Alexander completed 20-of-31 pass attempts for 257 yards, four touchdowns, and zero interceptions, yet remained unsatisfied with his performance.
“(There were) a couple of crucial two-and-outs that were completely my fault, messing up a couple reads — that can’t happen because in a game like that, we feel like we can compete with any team in a shootout. We should be able to, but when your quarterback messes up a couple plays, and you have a couple two-and-outs, and the other team’s rolling, it’s hard to come back from that,” he said.
“In that third quarter, it felt like everything was kind of coming down on us and we didn’t do a good job of shaking back like how we usually do. Part of that, a lot of it is honestly on me. I kind of shut down a little bit just from some other stuff that happened, and again, I learned a lot from this game, and I’m going to be a lot better.”
The two teams are in very different places, as Montreal has an eight-point lead for first place in the East Division, and Winnipeg is in the thick of a tight West Division.
Despite those differences, expect another high-intensity game when the Alouettes and Blue Bombers meet next month in La Belle Province.
The Montreal Alouettes (9-2) will host the B.C. Lions (6-5) at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium on Friday, September 4 with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. EDT. Last week, the Lions crushed the Ottawa Redblacks to win a fifth-straight game, while the Alouettes snapped their seven-game winning streak with an upset loss to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The weather forecast in Montreal calls for a high of 21 degrees and a 30 percent chance of showers. The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS in Canada, and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on 730 CKNW (English) or Sher-E-Punjab Radio AM 600 (Punjabi) in Vancouver or TSN 690 (English) or 99.5 Montreal (French) in Montreal.
