For the second time in three years, the Calgary Stampeders are regular-season champions of the West Division.
It’s the 16th time overall in franchise history the Red and White have finished first in the West. After a 19-year drought from 1972-89 when Calgary failed to claim a single division title, the Stamps have won the division title 10 times (including nine West titles one North Division crown in 1995 during the CFL’s United States experiment) in the past 21 years.
West Division champions
| Since 1990 | |
|---|---|
| Team | Titles |
| Calgary | 10* |
| Edmonton | 5 |
| BC | 5 |
| Saskatchewan | 1 |
* includes North Division championship in 1995
The 2010 Stamps have claimed the accomplishment with still two games remaining in the regular season, with a key to the feat being their season-series win over the 2009 division champion Saskatchewan Roughriders, including a key dramatic comeback victory at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium on Oct. 17.
The real work, of course, still lies ahead. That includes the Western Final, which will be played at McMahon Stadium on Nov. 21, but before that there are the final two regular-season contests — including Friday’s home date with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Those regular-season games may not have any bearing on the standings for the Stampeders but they remain very important.
“It’s quite simple — we’re going to prepare to win football games,” said Stampeders head coach and general manager John Hufnagel. “We’re going to play to win football games and nothing’s going to change. We’re going to do what we need to do to win two football games.”
There have been some accusations that the Stamps backed into the division title, missing out on a chance to clinch the title by failing to beat BC on Friday night and instead locking up first when Saskatchewan lost in Edmonton on Saturday.
“It’s not the way we wanted to clinch first place,” acknowledged Hufnagel. “But as I tell the team when we start training camp, we have certain goals we want to try and achieve and one is to make the playoffs. The second goal is to get a high seed and get the bye week, which we’ve now accomplished. The way we accomplished it doesn’t diminish the accomplishment itself.”
The Stamps got here by winning season series with the Riders, sweeping the Eskimos and playing the reigning Grey Cup-champion Alouettes to a split. Calgary is already guaranteed of not having a losing record against any other CFL club this season.
The Stamps lead the CFL in points scored and fewest yards allowed and are tied with Montreal for the league’s best record at 11-5.