July 5, 2010

Gizzie Willie
Blogger
EsksNation.ca


The Edmonton Eskimos seemed to follow the weather at Commonwealth Stadium this past weekend. A strong start, which saw the Eskimos drive the field to get within one yard of an opening touchdown, was derailed at about the same time as the clouds over the field opened up on the EsksNation contingent along with the other 32,426 faithful Eskimos fans in attendance.  For the rest of the first half, as the rain poured down, the BC Lions put up points. When the rain subsided towards the end of the second quarter, Arkee Whitlock provided the hometown fans with a touch of hope to go along with the remerging sun when he crossed the goal line for the first Eskimo touchdown of the season. Sadly, the final half didn’t follow weather pattern. As the sun shone in the third and fourth quarters, the Lions continued to make the most of their opportunities to add points via the strong leg of kicker Paul McCallum with the end result being a 25-10 loss for the Eskimos. It’s too bad really, as the evening weather down at Commonwealth was actually quite nice and watching a come from behind victory would have topped off an excellent Canada Day long weekend.

With the pressure of going undefeated taken care of in the first week, the Eskimos can now focus on getting their first win of the young season under their belts when they meet the Montreal Alouettes in another Sunday evening affair. Unlike the BC Lions, who are now 4-0 in their last four contests in Edmonton and are now considering making Edmonton their second home field (totally kidding on that one), the Alouettes lost to the Eskimos when they visited Commonwealth Stadium in 2009 and haven’t found success in Alberta’s capital city since the 2006 season. It was during that victory, way back in the summer following the Edmonton Oilers run to the Stanley Cup Final, that a young Avon Cobourne was kept busy returning punts and kickoffs for Montreal.

Cobourne will undoubtedly play a much more prominent role in Sunday matchup, when the league leader in rushing touchdowns from 2009 faces off against the second place running back in Whitlock. Can we expect a ground battle between these two tenacious tailbacks? It would be entertaining to watch, providing that they break a few long runs and Whitlock wins the ground battle by a couple of touchdowns.

Unfortunately for Cobourne and Whitlock, the running game may not have a chance to take center stage on Sunday. Quarterbacks Ricky Ray and Anthony Calvillo are two of the best in the CFL business, and despite both suffering opening day losses, these two pivots know how to win football games. When the two teams last met in Commonwealth, Ray completed 23 pass attempts for 363 yards and three touchdowns enroute to a 33-17 Eskimo victory. Not sure where the number three theme came from in that statline, but a repeat performance would be greatly appreciated by the home town crowd.

So if we go along with the three theme, we can see some interesting trends developing. As mentioned, Montreal has not won in Edmonton since 2006. That’s three regular seasons without a win in Commonwealth. Added to that little nugget, Whitlock has scored a touchdown in three straight regular season games going back to last year. And finally, Sunday’s 5:00 pm start time will mark the third straight game attended by yours truly at Commonwealth at that time. Okay, so maybe the three theme is a little bit of stretch, but I do know that with a forecasted high of 29 degrees on Sunday, an Eskimo victory would be the perfect way finish off another fabulous weekend of CFL football.
See you down at the stadium.

Gizzie Willie