OTTAWA — They sat next to each other on Wednesday morning as rivals, contemporaries, coach of the year nominees and at one point in time, near co-workers.

Dave Dickenson and Marc Trestman will compete against one another in the 105th Grey Cup Presented By Shaw on Sunday, but for 30 minutes on Wednesday morning, the two coaches looked back at their careers, their seasons and how the two of their paths almost crossed 10 years ago.

“To my recollection we did have a discussion, didn’t we?” Trestman said, pivoting in his chair on the stage in Ottawa’s Shaw Centre, looking to his right at Dickenson.

“We did,” Dickenson said back, grinning.

“And it worked out the way it did,” Trestman said. “Here he is. It says a lot for who he is and a lot of what he’s accomplished and what he’s doing here. How he handles his team, how he handles the media. Every part of his game is something we can all be proud of.”

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Dickenson had been cut by the BC Lions when Trestman reached out to him.

“I wanted to meet with him, I wanted to see what I could learn. I knew I could learn a lot but I just hadn’t at that point given up the dream of playing,” Dickenson said. “I told him I was going to try to keep this going. As it turned out, the career was pretty much over as a player, but I stayed in Calgary with (John Hufnagel).”

Dickenson became the Stampeders’ offensive assistant coach in 2009 and became offensive coordinator in 2010. He became head coach in 2015, after Hufnagel moved from the sidelines to the role of team president and general manager.

With Trestman the head coach of the Toronto Argonauts, the conversation wouldn’t be the same today as it was back then, but it’s still one that Dickenson would like to have.

“I think football people like talking football,” he said. “I think both of us just enjoy the game and both of us would enjoy sitting down and comparing notes and seeing where we’re at.”

“Not this week though. We’ll keep it for another week.”

If you thought back in May or June to which two coaches you’d see on that stage today, one half of the equation would be a pretty straightforward guess. The Stamps had their hearts broken in last year’s Grey Cup game but their roster returned mostly intact after an offseason that probably felt two or three times as long as it did for the rest of the league. Dickenson’s team still has Bo Levi Mitchell and a receiving corps that looks like a five-finger death punch on a depth chart. It showed in Sunday’s Western Final that it can conjure up a running game when it needs it. Calgary’s defence might be better than it’s ever been through nearly a decade of dominance.

Then there’s the other guy sitting on that stage.

Trestman was out of football a year ago, fired as offensive coordinator by the Baltimore Ravens in October 2016. Along with brand-new Argos GM Jim Popp, Trestman was hired late in the CFL offseason, inked on Feb. 28.

He inherited a team that had won five games last year and seemingly had no direction. With an entirely new coaching staff, Trestman rallied around veteran QB Ricky Ray. The new leadership brought over 40 new players into training camp and lo and behold, the team that finished tied for last in the league in 2016 is playing for the Grey Cup a year later.

“I think there was a lot of luck involved on my part as a head coach,” Trestman said of his team’s turnaround.

“I was able to keep (offensive coordinator) Marcus Brady, who I knew. I was able to convince Corey (Chamblin, defensive coordinator) to come out of retirement, which was just, the stars I think were aligned just right for them.

“I think Corey did a really excellent job of helping me vet the defensive staff and we got the right guys at the right time and offensively really it was the same thing.

“Player-wise I knew what we were getting with Ricky, I knew enough. I knew the man and the leader and the type of guy we were getting.

“I really attribute it to Spencer (Zimmerman, the Argos’ assistant GM) and the personnel staff that was here before Jim and certainly when Jim got here, the acquisitions that we had. They did a great job of alleviating a lot of the first-year problems that you’d have.

Popp traded for receivers Armanti Edwards and S.J. Green, then snagged linebacker Bear Woods out of Montreal when he was cut in training camp.

“That helped solidify us with guys who knew what to expect early on in the locker room,” Trestman said.

“I attribute it to a lot of luck, quite frankly and a lot of good fortune of having really good resources. We had great resources from Michael (Copeland) and Sara (Moore), our ownership. We were a work in progress but a lot of people stepped up and made it easier than it should have been, quite frankly.”

It’s an unexpected pairing, if you think back to the start of the season, but Dickenson and Trestman will bear down for the rest of the week. The affable conversation from the coaches might well have ended Wednesday morning on that stage in Ottawa. That chat, the shop talk that Dickenson would like to have, will go on the shelf until the winter at least.  There’s heartbreak in store for one of these teams and each coach will spend the next few days tying to make sure his team isn’t the one experiencing it.