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.
