Football: CFL

Stamps save their best for last

 The Calgary Stampeders needed to win their final regular-season game to qualify for the West Division playoffs with an unspectacular 8-10-0-1 record. But the Stamps caught fire in the post-season, dispatching B.C. and Edmonton before completing their amazing run with a surprising 27-19 Grey Cup win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers before 65,255 rabid fans at Montreal's Olympic Stadium -- the second-largest gathering for a CFL title game ever.

 Winnipeg entered the Grey Cup the prohibitive favourite after being the CFL's dominant club during the regular season. The Bombers posted a league-best 14-4-0-0 record -- which included a stretch of 12 straight wins -- and had three players honoured at the annual awards banquet (quarterback Khari Jones, most outstanding player; tackle Dave Mudge, top lineman; defensive tackle Doug Brown, top Canadian).

 Winnipeg threatened to blow Calgary out to start the game, dominating play in the first quarter. But the Bombers entered the second quarter leading just 4-0 after failing to capitalize on their scoring chances.

 That allowed Calgary to hang around long enough for quarterback Marcus Crandell, the game MVP, to find Marc Boerigter on a huge 62-yard touchdown. For Winnipeg, missed opportunities, penalties and blown coverages combined to put them into a 17-4 half-time hole they would never get out of.

 Then in the fourth quarter, backup defensive back Aldi Henry, the game's top Canadian, delivered the knockout blow, blocking a punt that teammate Willie Fells returned 11 yards for the touchdown to put Calgary ahead 24-12.

 Appropriately, Stampeders defensive tackle Joe Fleming, who left Winnipeg two years earlier to play for a Grey Cup contender, clinched the victory by sacking Jones on the game's final play.

 Last year, the B.C. Lions defeated the Montreal Alouettes 28-26 to become the first CFL team to win the Grey Cup after posting a losing regular-season record (8-10-0-0).

 New Stampeders owner Michael Feterik ensured that coach-general manager Wally Buono will stay put. Buono had an escape clause in his contract that would've allowed him to leave Calgary at season's end, but Buono signed a four-year deal with the CFL club that will reportedly pay him more than $300,000 annually.

 But George Cortez, the Stampeders' respected offensive co-ordinator, left the organization this month to become the offensive co-ordinator at the University of California.

 Montreal was expected by many to win the 2001 Grey Cup, and looked like money in the bank, sitting atop the East Division standings after winning nine of its first 11 games. But the club then collapsed, losing six straight before firing first-year head coach Rod Rust and replacing him with general manager Jim Popp. The move, aimed at shaking up the players, didn't have the desired effect as a demoralized Alouettes squad ended its once-promising season by losing its final two games.

 Less than two weeks later, the club hired Don Matthews as its head coach. Matthews, who signed a three-year deal reportedly worth $1 million, has a history of winning, having amassed a league-record 173 career regular-season victories and four Grey Cup championships during a 17-year career spent with six different CFL teams.

 The CFL also made its long-awaited return to Ottawa, granting an expansion franchise to a group headed up by Toronto entrepreneur Brad Watters to begin play in the nation's capital next season. One of Watters' first moves was hiring Eric Tillman as general manager before announcing the new team would be called the Renegades.

 Tillman subsequently named Joe Paopao, a former Ottawa Rough Riders quarterback, as the expansion team's new head coach.

 Sig Gutsche ended his five-year ownership of the Stampeders last month, finalizing the sale of the Calgary franchise to Feterik for a reported $10.5 million US.

 But not all league business was quite so rosy. For example:

 --Commissioner Michael Lysko squashed the Toronto Argonauts' plan to use strippers at its pre-game parties.

 --Lysko's decision to reschedule league games following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. drew the ire of Gutsche and Winnipeg board chairman David Asper. Both were upset that Lysko unilaterally decided to postpone the games after the CFL board voted to go ahead with them. League governors gathered in Toronto shortly after, with Lysko, Gutsche and Asper all sporting a united front.

 --The Toronto Argonauts endured another unsettled season. Owner Sherwood Schwarz, after losing $6 million in his first year with the club, replaced friend J.I. Albrecht as general manager with former player Paul Masotti. Jeff Giles, the former chief operating officer of the CFL, became the club's president and spearheaded the team's attempt to move to Lamport Stadium in 2003 before abruptly resigning less than a year later. Mike (Pinball) Clemons guided the team to 7-11-0-1 record in his first full season as head coach, but left that post to replace Giles as president. Schwarz has denied reports that he'll walk away from the club this off-season despite losing $3 million this season.

 --The league continued to lose players entering the option year of the CFL deal to the NFL. Among those to leave were Calgary quarterback Dave Dickenson and Montreal cornerback Davis Sanchez (both to San Diego Chargers) and Saskatchewan quarterback Henry Burris (Green Bay).

 The CFL also lost more than 20 players, coaches and front-office personnel to the upstart XFL, the spring league that was the brainchild of WWF guru Vince McMahon. The emergence of the new league had some CFL officials concerned that they would face added competition for players.

 But the perceived threat was short-lived. Abysmal television ratings on NBC, a league partner, resulted in the XFL folding after just one season of operation.