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The vary of feelings is tough to fathom – except you’ve lived them each.
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HAMILTON – It’s all concerning the confetti.
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No less than that’s the way in which Jermarcus Hardrick was trying on the Gray Cup sport earlier this week.
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Requested what his Winnipeg Blue Bombers realized from final yr’s one-point loss, one thing they may have the ability to use on Sunday, the hulking O-lineman obtained proper to the purpose.
“End,” Hardrick mentioned. “End. End. Get one play higher. Attempt to get the confetti to go the opposite approach.”
If it’s raining blue-and-gold on the stage Sunday night time, Hardrick and his teammates will probably be carrying smiles as broad as Niagara Falls.
They won’t care concerning the phrase dynasty, however they’ll go down as one.
A franchise that went 28 years and not using a CFL championship may have gained three in 4 years, defying logic.
However there’s one other chance. One that may spark one other seven months, or extra, of soul-searching and heartache.
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The vary of feelings is tough to fathom – except you’ve lived them each.
“To fall quick by a degree, you’re emotionally distraught,” O-lineman Pat Neufeld mentioned. “You’ve obtained nothing left. You’re left speechless. However once you win it, it’s validation of all of the sacrifice and work you place in. And to see your teammates who’ve put in a lot work and sacrificed for you, it’s the most effective feeling on the earth.”
Listening to recordings of post-game interviews from the final two Gray Cup video games, you’re struck by the extremes.
It’s like strolling from a New Yr’s Eve celebration straight right into a morgue.
In a single setting, you possibly can barely hear your self assume. Within the different, useless silence, the occasional, reluctant voice barely above a whisper, cracking with emotion.
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“You simply defined how my low season was,” Hardrick mentioned. “It was very quiet for a very long time. It drives me, fuels me.”
Competing in a championship sport is in contrast to nearly some other endeavour, a contortion of time that makes three hours final a lifetime.
Somehow.
“There isn’t a in-between on this sport,” receiver Drew Wolitarsky mentioned. “It’s not just like the common season. No, that is it. In case you don’t come out to play your cleanest and finest soccer, you lose. It’s a fragile sport. Playoffs is a fragile time.”
Delicate since you’re essentially the most worn down, Wolitarsky defined, however you’re presupposed to be taking part in your finest soccer.
The Bombers didn’t do this towards Toronto a yr in the past and have paid a protracted, arduous worth ever since. A worth that at occasions outweighed the rewards of the back-to-back championships that got here earlier than.
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“It’s a journey,” Wolitarsky mentioned. “It pushes your willpower and your psychological toughness. It actually comes all the way down to who desires it extra. They’re going to need it. It’s their first time right here in a very long time. That’s good to know, although.”
There’s one thing else that may be good to know for the Bombers: the 2 emotions up for grabs.
You marvel if having each imprinted so lately on their brains and their hearts provides a layer of pores and skin the Montreal Alouettes simply don’t have.
“That’s a great way of placing it,” Neufeld mentioned. “Being on each side of the sword, and understanding how deep it might reduce. However how a lot elation it’s to be on the opposite facet. It’s understanding what’s at stake, and the way emotional it may be on the finish.
“It’s virtually like knowledge.”
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Possibly it’s like surviving a automotive crash. From then on, you may be extra alert behind the wheel, extra conscious of how bother can begin, the place it might come from.
Willie Jefferson put the brakes on that angle. It sounded too cautious for him.
“We reside life within the quick lane,” Jefferson mentioned. “We now have an amazing teaching employees that exhibits us the way in which. We’re driving quick and in management.”
Select any analogy you need. It doesn’t change the emotions on the core.
Jefferson’s jubilant voice on this identical metropolis two years in the past was a kind of I revisited this week. He sounded on prime of the world, surrounded by his finest pals.
Then there was final yr in Regina.
“Evening and day,” the defensive finish mentioned. “There’s so many feelings that go into profitable a Gray Cup. Every little thing appears euphoric. Every little thing appears fairy-tale-ish. No unhealthy can actually come after that. And it’s the overall reverse once you lose. Now you’re getting nightmares. Now you’re getting damaging ideas, enthusiastic about what’s subsequent.
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“How am I going to enter subsequent season? What crew am I going to be on? All these issues occur once you lose.”
None of them once you win.
That data explains the Bombers’ manner this week.
You get the sensation they’ve lined each chance, explored each nook and cranny, to the purpose of being obsessive.
“I’m not leaving something to likelihood,” Hardrick mentioned.
“Don’t depart any stone unturned,” is how Wolitarsky put it. “It comes down to at least one or two performs, that final sport. I’m going to actually reinforce that with the opposite guys.
“Simply keep in mind: we don’t wish to stroll off this area and not using a W.”
Or with out the best color of confetti.
pfriesen@postmedia.com
X: @friesensunmedia
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