THE CANADIAN PRESS
CFL.ca Staff
HAMILTON — Whenever the Hamilton Tiger-Cats get knocked down a peg, they never fail to rise up one or two more.
From a 1-6 start to winning the division and appearing in the Grey Cup last year, getting back up is no foreign concept. The dying minutes of last year’s Grey Cup were bitter, yes, and still loom large in the minds of many Ticats as 2015 approaches.
But while the plan is to move on and focus on the season that waits, this team will never forget its momentary demise last November.
“It kind of motivates your off-season workout to get that much better,” said Ticats national slotback Andy Fantuz. “Every so often I meet up with some of my teammates and none of us have forgotten it.”
“For us now that’s two years in a row, and we just know that it’s right now that’s going to make the difference for us to get over the hump in the next year.”
Fantuz recalls receiving Most Valuable Canadian honours following a 20-16 loss to the Calgary Stampeders in the Grey Cup Championship after hauling in six passes for 81 yards. The Ticats believed they had won the Grey Cup in the game’s final moment after a Brandon Banks punt return touchdown appeared to edge them ahead, only for it to be called back on a holding penalty.
The award was an honour, he said, but at the same time he said felt he should have be sulking alongside his teammates.
“It was just so disappointing,” recalled Fantuz. “I was so upset for my teammates and we had worked so hard. I felt like we deserved it as a team and as an organization, and the community of Hamilton and all of our fans.”
“I thought we played really well and we turned it around from the start of the season,” he continued. “I really wanted it so bad and it was disappointing.”
By this time, there was no regret or disappointment in Fantuz’s voice – only urgency and determination. This is a player with only one thing on his mind: Get back to the big game and go for it again.
After tearing his bicep and missing most of the 2014 season, defensive tackle Brian Bulcke watched the sad ending unfold as a spectator. The worst he said he felt last year was watching the pain on his teammates’ faces as the Grey Cup was lost.
“Unfortunately that was the third Grey Cup I’ve lost, and the feeling of playing and being on there and blood sweat and tears coming off that field is almost irreplaceable because it’s so painful,” said Bulcke, recalling the other two Grey Cups he lost as a player – one as a Ticat and one as a Stampeder.
“But for me, having been on the outside of last year and watching that pain across everyone else, it hurt.”
Bulcke said he, too, had been consumed by the loss all off-season. He’s 100 per cent healthy, bicep healed and overall he’s in the best shape of his life after a shortened season without facing the usual grind of the CFL defensive lineman.
Last year will fuel him too, he added – but come June 1, the pain turns to, once again, urgency and determination.
“Especially once you shake off that first hit, then you know it’s 2015 and it’s time to go.”
Bulcke likens the Ticats to Rocky Balboa, a famous movie character boxer portrayed by Sylvester Stallone with a never give up attitude. Balboa takes his share of knocks both in life and in the ring – he didn’t become a world heavyweight champion without losing some fights along the way.
“There’s a little bit of that Rocky Balboa adage, where the true test of the man isn’t how hard you hit – it’s how hard you can get hit and get back up and keep fighting,” said Bulcke. “That Steel City grit, Hamiltonian attitude is true within the team.”
If the Ticats are like Rocky, is 2015 the year they finally overcome the adversity and become Grey Cup Champions?
It’s true, coming back against the odds has become a recurring theme for the Ticats. In 2013 as brand new Tim Hortons Field was built, the team was forced to play home games at Alumni Stadium in nearby Guelph, Ont. Without a true home field, the Ticats rallied from a 1-4 start to finish 10-8 and earn a home playoff date, eventually appearing in the Grey Cup.
After a Grey Cup loss to the rowdy hometown Riders, Hamilton responded with another slow start in 2014, again only to rally and play in a second straight Grey Cup.
The Ticats see the big picture playing out just like last year’s in-season turnaround – a slow start with two Grey Cup losses, but plenty of promise and the opportunity to turn things around. Let the Steeltown Hamiltonian attitude lead the way.
“That’s a good way to put it,” said Fantuz. “I think that you take a season where you start 1-6 and make it to the Grey Cup, well hopefully this is a dynasty that we’re creating here with the core group of guys that we have and our coaches and our organization.”
“We had a slow start losing two Grey Cups in a row, but we’ll bounce back and hopefully bring home the Cup not just once but multiple times in the near future.”
This time around, the Ticats believe adversity has already sharpened them. While they spent the first half of the last two seasons adjusting to new personnel, this year they believe continuity can help them hit the ground running.
The plan is to find last autumn’s form far earlier.
“It took us about nine weeks to figure out the secret sauce in 2013, and I think if you look at the film, it took us another nine weeks for us to figure out the secret sauce again because some of the things those boys were doing in the second half of last season was just nasty,” said Bulcke.
Bulcke’s lost three Grey Cup Championships while Fantuz has lost four, including twice back-to-back each with Hamilton and Saskatchewan. Losing never gets easier, but the Ticats are saying all the right things.
“You’ve just got to stay positive,” said Fantuz. “I haven’t lost two in a row and then come back to win yet, so I have some learning to do.”
“But I just keep reiterating that this opportunity doesn’t come along often,” he continued. “You’ve got to seize it. Take nothing for granted. Just because we feel like we deserved to win or we had the tools to win doesn’t mean we’re going to win or it’s going to be given to us.”
“There’s a little bit of that Rocky Balboa adage, where the true test of the man isn’t how hard you hit – it’s how hard you can get hit and get back up and keep fighting.“
Brian Bulcke
The Stampeders were the class of the CFL last season, losing only three games while leading the league standings from wire to wire. They were a heavy favourite entering last November’s Grey Cup and while the Ticats relished the underdog role in that game, they don’t want to be the underdog this year.
Like the 2014 Stampeders, the Ticats want to dominate from start to finish.
“The Stampeders are a great team, they were the class of the league all year,” said Fantuz. “They had a well-earned championship and we want to be in that position they were in going into the Grey Cup next year.”
“We want to be that team that wins 80, 90 per cent of our games and has that touchdown edge going into the Grey Cup,” he added. “We want to be that team.”
“We don’t want to be the underdog again.”
