Still Struggling

[elder]

Thanks Zach....I too feel your pain and as I'm approaching my 71st birthday in December, it has taken some time to digest this loss.   The emotions in the last 3 minutes of that game ranged from despair to elation and then back t9 despair.
 
I've been a Bomber fan for over 6 decades now and there are fewer of us around now each and every year.   When the Bombers won the Cup in 2019, I was there....my first ever Grey Cup game.    After winning that game as the underdog, and in such a convincing fashion....and after 29 years of despair, it was in essence cathartic for me as a Bomber fan.   If I had died that day it would have been poetic destiny as a Bomber fan.    That's how much that game meant for me and I thought there was nothing more I needed as a fan....but then we won a miraculous 2nd cup in Hamilton and I thought we were very fortunate to win it and I actually felt sadness for the Hamilton fans.  Had we not won that game, I was actually ok with it and I would have been resigned to feel some empathy for the TiCats and their fans....but hey, we won and I never thought about winning another one the next year.

However, the season we put together despite all the devastating injuries got me aboard the "Three Peat" train.    And despite my having watched the Bombers win 4 Cups in 6 years with Bud Grant, Kenny Ploen and Leo Lewis....I felt this team was on similar path.   The bitter sting of this loss will fuel players like Brady Olivera and others to work even harder in the off season to go back to the GC a fourth year in succession.   Any you're right, many things have to fall into place for that to happen....yet for the players they now know the agony of defeat and the glorious ecstasy of victory and they will want it that much more.
 
We didn't play our best game by any stretch and despite the Argos seemingly giving us several opportunities to win it all....we couldn't find the magic at the end of the game.    Looking back, I really believed we should have run the ball on 2nd and 5 and get a bit closer for our kicker to boot the winning FG on the last play of the game.    Our running game was the best part of our offence on Sunday and we needed 5 yards which I believe we would have made, even if it required a 3rd down gamble.   At that point in the game I would have invested my faith in our running game to accomplish the first down however we didn't and the rest is history, as the cliche goes.

As I am likely twice your age I've lived through a few more disappointing moments as a Bomber fan and this one admittedly, was the toughest besides the one in 2001.    The thing is this year we faced a team who perhaps didn't have as stellar a season or weren't riding on back to back Cups....yet they were hungry and their Defence owned our O-line for much of the game....never allowing Zach to get into a rythym.  

The legendary hockey player Jaromir Jagr once said that to win Olympic Gold, you needed to have luck in a one and done playoff format.    On Sunday, we had our fair share of it what with the face masking call and us blocking their final FG attempt and giving us a chance at coming back.

But sometimes you need more than luck and the Argos in Mike O'Shea's words "went after it".....something he did regularly when wearing the double blue as well as coaching them.   If we had missed the FG I would have felt much worse, but the Argos made two big plays when they most needed them and were the winners because of it.    

That fact alone, has helped me take this bitter loss much more philosophically.   With the core players we have, we will no doubt contend again for the 110 Grey Cup and we will once again need an element of luck to get us to the promised land.   That being said good teams seem to make  their share of luck and we are a good team....and I would daresay in this day and age....a dynasty in the making! 

As Blue in BC said, it was a fantastic season in so many ways and we'll be back next year with some new faces and compete again for la Coupe Grey!

I'm nearly 77 and I've been a Bomber fan since 1956.  My Dad got me interested that year and we used to listen to games on the radio.  The first televised game I watched was the depressing 1957 Grey Cup.  The Bombers had finally bested Edmonton in the finals, but many/most players were injured and Hamilton thumped the team.  This loss was avenged the following year in probably the most exciting Grey Cup game I've witnessed. I went to my first live game in 1959 and I had season's tickets in 1962 when I was 16. I've lived in Vancouver since 1972, but I've never warmed to the Lions.