B.C. Lions' T.J. Lee, left, and Ronnie Yell talk while sitting on the bench during the second half of a pre-season CFL football game against the Calgary Stampeders in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday June 17, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
A switch as been flipped at BC Lions headquarters as the training camp pressure is over and focus is now on the 2016 regular season opener. The fun begins Saturday when Dave Dickenson, Bo Levi Mitchell and the Calgary Stampeders come to town. For the home team, it’s a chance to set the tone early in what should be a fight to the finish to determine playoff positioning in the competitive West Division, and also an opportunity to re-establish a home field advantage for the club at BC Place. It marks the first of three regular season meetings between the Lions and Stamps between now and August 19th. We caught up with four members of the squad to gauge their excitement and anticipation for opening night.
Nine-year veteran Rolly Lumbala:
“It’s exciting. We’ve put in a lot of work the last month in training camp and now it’s the real deal. It’s going to be exciting starting off at home. We love playing at BC Place with the atmosphere our fans bring. We have a lot of great new additions on our team and we feel very good.I’m blessed to be able to live my dream. I’m still in great shape and I feel I can help on special teams and offence. Cheers to many more years.”
“It’s nice to be back in Surrey in the facility and we’re really excited about putting it all into the game plan and getting ready for the first game. The fans are what we play for. They make us and we’re all excited about getting out there and putting on a show for them. We have big playmakers out there and a good scheme with Khari, good guys in the film room and we’re excited to go out there and show what we got.”
“It’s a feeling we’ve been waiting on for about 3 or 4 weeks now. Pre-season and training camp was a grind but we all got through it healthy and successful. To finally go out there and say this is a real game and it actually counts, that means a lot. We’re excited and ready to go. It’s always fun going against Bo Levi Mitchell. He is one of the top quarterbacks in the league and it’s fun going against him because he is really legit. It’s a big test but one we can handle. We’ll get it done.”
“We feel good. We have a lot of new things going in this week, we’ve practiced pretty hard, saw some potential things on film so I think we’re going to do pretty good. It will be a fun challenge for us. Calgary has a great offensive line. It’s going to be great to be back at BC Place, I feel we have the best fans in the CFL and our place is really loud when they come in. In order to get to the playoffs and to win you have to win at home so we have to protect our house. That’s our mindset.”
Matt Baker:mbaker@bclions.com