2008 Grey Cup
STAMPEDERS READY FOR HOSTILE MONTREAL CROWD
11/23/2008 - MONTREAL - It's been a busy week of Grey Cup preparation for the Calgary Stampeders, a team that not only faces a formidable foe in the Montreal Alouettes, but another mighty opponent: the hostile Big O crowd.
More than 63,000 tickets have already been sold for Sunday's CFL title game at the Olympic Stadium, a closed-roof behemoth renowned for holding a thunderous roar.
At practice this week, the Stampeders tried acclimatizing players to the expected game conditions by blasting taped crowd racket through the building's sound system.
"I told them exactly how loud it was going to be," Stamps defensive co-ordinator Chris Jones said Saturday, after running the team through a light workout.
"We brought in the noise this week and it helped us - it let us see that we're not going to be able to hear, so everything's got to be visual."
Jones, the Alouettes' defensive co-ordinator from 2003 to 2007, doesn't expect the volume to come down, regardless of which team has the ball.
"I don't remember them (the fans) ever quieting down in years past. From the time all the people get in here, it's loud until it's over."
Stamps safety Wes Lysack said the coaches have cranked up the volume on phoney crowd noise at practice a few times this year, but no building carries sound quite like Olympic Stadium.
"I've been popping more Tylenol than I have in my entire life," Lysack said of the past week.
The Alouettes, who won the East Division title with an 11-7 record, aim to become the first team since the '94 B.C. Lions to win the Grey Cup on home soil.
The Stampeders, meanwhile, had the CFL's best regular-season record at 13-5 and won both tilts against Montreal.
Event organizers hope the match-up will break the CFL's attendance record of 68,318, set during the 1977 Grey Cup at Olympic Stadium between Montreal and the Edmonton Eskimos.
The deafening din of football fanatics usually creates more headaches for offensive units, sometimes causing players to miss snap counts and substitution calls.
But Calgary quarterback Henry Burris said Saturday that his squad is ready to face the Als' hometown faithful.
Burris said the Stamps hope to take the Montreal fans out of the game early, before the noise rattles the cement slabs of the stadium.
"We're prepared, that's what we've been working on all week," Burris said.
Lysack hopes the hometown fans inadvertently stir up trouble for Alouettes pivot Anthony Calvillo and his team's powerful offence.
"They've got a pretty good offence, and if they can struggle with the noise, then that's good by me," he said.
"I don't anticipate that they will. They're pros and this is the Grey Cup."
But the expected masses have indeed raised concerns with the home side.
The Alouettes, who play regular-season games at the 20,000-seat, outdoor Percival Molson Stadium, have also been practising to recorded crowd clamour and perfecting on silent snap counts.
Head coach Marc Trestman even had a message for the city's vocal sports fans.
"We want to be as quiet as we can when A.C. (Calvillo) is on the field, and when Burris is on the field ... we will shout loudly," Trestman said Saturday.
But Als' veteran centre Bryan Chiu said as long as it's a little louder when Calgary has the ball - bring on the noise.
"This is a very loud stadium when it's packed, and for a Grey Cup in your own hometown, I will probably see the ground shake tomorrow."
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