Quieting the noise with Prairie pride on the line

The rivalry between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Saskatchewan Roughriders is a different breed.

It’s a yearly showdown that, regardless of league standings, is a passionate display of provincial pride. While there are other heated rivalries in the CFL, none compare to the three-down clash between the two Prairie provinces.

“If there was anybody in the United States or anybody who didn’t know the CFL,” started Bombers defensive co-ordinator Jordan Younger, “if we had to show them one regular-season game to define how special a CFL game can be, it would probably be Labour Day between the Riders and Bombers.”

As the two teams prepare to face off in the annual Labour Day Classic in Regina this Sunday, the stakes couldn’t be higher. This isn’t just about bragging rights.

The Riders, sitting at 8-2, hold the top spot in the West Division, with the Bombers just two games behind at 6-4. Looming over both teams are the Calgary Stampeders, who are 7-3 and, notably, also hold the season-series tiebreaker over both Winnipeg and Saskatchewan.

With three games remaining against the Riders this season, the Bombers know they must win the series to gain the tiebreaker and keep their hopes of hosting a home playoff game alive. The rivalry, then, only intensifies the already deep implications of the matchup.

For Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros, the Labour Day Classic is a beast in and of its own.

“It’s different leading up to it, for sure,” he said. “Obviously, for the fan bases involved, it matters a ton. It matters a ton to us, too. You can look ahead at standings and obviously understand that these games matter immensely. But for us, it’s just trying to get on a one-game winning streak.”

Navigating the hostile environment of Mosaic Stadium is not a new but still central challenge for the Bombers. The Rider faithful are known for their passion, and with a majority of the more than 34,000 expected to attend wearing green, the crowd will be a major factor.

The Bombers have been blasting artificial crowd noise into Princess Auto Stadium during practices all week to simulate the hostile and deafening environment in Regina. It seemed to have an impact on the workout, with the Bombers taking more offside “penalties” than usual during 12-on-12 drills.

“The communication stuff, you’re going to have to be superb with that,” Collaros added. “You need to execute at a high rate to win games in general, but especially in that setting, it puts even more on it.”

Younger doubled down on the effect of the noise, adding that the crowd can magnify the significance of mistakes.

“Because it’s usually a packed house, the momentum of the game, those big plays, they carry a different feeling because the crowd gets so into it,” Younger said. “If you’re in Sask playing that game, and they get a big play, that charges the crowd up and now you got to fight back against that momentum.”

Collaros listed off a series of clichés when talking about the importance of combating the crowd noise — maintain your composure, don’t get too high or low and always keep your emotions in check, to name a few — and said, if achieved, “you can navigate your way through a hostile crowd like that.”

Head coach Mike O’Shea downplayed the broader stakes of Sunday’s game, in what was clearly a message to his players that their focus should be on the process, not the result.

“If you’re so into outcomes and looking too far ahead, you just lose sight of what you’re doing right now,” O’Shea said. “Everything you hear is about staying in the present. It gets repeated because it’s true.”

Offensive co-ordinator Jason Hogan was credited for jacking up the practice field noise to simulate the deafening jeers they’ll face on Sunday. He also got a workout from all the offside calls from the offence, which requires everyone on the team, coaches included, to do 10 push-ups for each infraction.

“I got my chest workout in,” Hogan joked, before shifting back to the volume at practice. “We pumped it out. We jacked it up as high as we could, just to put the guys in the most chaotic atmosphere possible so that they can just go ahead and play fast and slow it down for them on game day.”

He added: “There’s no noise unless you want there to be noise. We’re going to focus up and stay locked in and it’s just another game at the end of the day.”

On the other side of the ball, Younger is tasked with slowing down Riders quarterback Trevor Harris. Younger praised Harris for his high football IQ, saying how Harris himself could coach defence given his extensive CFL experience.

“He’s just so intelligent in his understanding of how defences are supposed to move,” Younger said. “You got to be on point, and because he gets rid of the ball so quickly, the biggest challenge is not necessarily stopping from catching the ball, it’s to make the tackles, because you got to react.”

To counter Harris’s accuracy and anticipation of Winnipeg’s defensive scheme, Younger’s game plan is to keep him guessing.

“You just try to mix up the looks,” he explained. “You figure out what’s working… then you got to give him another look.”

Seemingly more than any other game on the regular-season schedule, the Labour Day Classic often hinges on a single, game-changing moment — a deep pass, a special-teams touchdown or a forced turnover. This is another reason why controlling the crowd’s momentum is so important.

Younger believes that those plays carry extra weight in a rivalry game with a packed house. A huge play for the home team can energize the crowd and make it that much harder to fight back.

But the opposite is also true. A big play by the Bombers’ defence could instantly turn the tide.

“In those situations, it definitely can quiet the crowd and then shift that momentum back in our favour,” Younger said.

With the season series on the line and the West standings up for grabs, the Bombers-Riders Labour Day Classic is exactly the kind of action both fan bases crave. It can also bring out the best in coaches and players.

When asked about the highly competitive race in the division, O’Shea’s face drew a wide smile.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “And I think most guys in the West love a good fist fight.”

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca