Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca
Josh Bell stood on the field at TD Place on Saturday and pointed out to the east end zone. A slow, steady rain pattered down on him as he went back in time.
“All I remember was standing on the field after, down there in the bottom corner,” Bell, the Calgary Stampeders safety said. He looks to that end zone and sees Ottawa, but he’s talking Toronto.
“We were walking off the field and turning around and watching them celebrate on their side, right in the middle of the field, standing there watching them celebrate winning the game. I can remember that.”
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Stamps safety Josh Bell speaks to reporters following Saturday’s walkthrough in Ottawa (Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca)
Maybe, after 363 days, Bell doesn’t want to talk about it any more. Maybe that image of the Ottawa REDBLACKS storming the field after they’d won the Grey Cup last year was all he needed to see. Or maybe Bell actually means it when he says he can’t remember much of anything else about that night and the days that followed it.
“Can’t remember. Can’t remember. Cannot remember. I do not remember one speck of the week after,” he said.
“I know we probably had exit evaluations the next day, clean our lockers out type of stuff. I remember mailing my stuff away. My workout clothes, shipping that in the mail. I can’t remember anything after that game besides that.”
It’s been a long year for Bell and his teammates. Their league-best 13-4-1 record, their fifth trip to this Grey Cup game in the last 10 years; you get the feeling that none of that will matter on Monday morning if they don’t get Sunday night right. All of the good that happened this year, that happens most years for the Stamps — Calgary coach Dave Dickenson said he tries to remind his team of that while they hunt for greater things — will end up in the mental incinerator if Bell has to look across the field Sunday night to see his opponents celebrating the way he wants to.
A leader on this Stamps team, Bell will do everything he can to make sure things are different this year. He wants to keep his teammates loose out of the gate on game day.
“Probably the first couple of drives I’ll be looking around, depending what’s happening, to make sure everyone’s calm. Looking into people’s eyes and making sure they’re not seeing ghosts.”
Stamps safety Josh Bell
“Probably the first couple of drives I’ll be looking around, depending what’s happening, to make sure everyone’s calm. Looking into people’s eyes and making sure they’re not seeing ghosts,” he said.
Ghosts have a way of lingering around a team. They tried to the spook the Stamps last week in the Western Final, when Edmonton jumped out to a quick 14-0 lead. It was similar to that Grey Cup game a year ago, where Ottawa opened up a 27-7 lead early in the third quarter, the Stamps’ backs tightening the harder they were pressed up against the wall.
The deficit was unexpected, given the dominant season they’d had last year. Bell said visualization would be a big part of his Saturday night. He doesn’t want any surprises.
“Put yourself in every situation that you could imagine to kind of desensitize yourself to it,” he explained. “Down by 24, second quarter. What do you do? How do you respond? How are your body mannerisms? How do you act? What do you say? What do you do on the field and off the field, on the sideline? Up by 21, third quarter. How do you keep going? How do you get up by another 21, to make it 42 instead of making it a tie game in the next quarter?
“You put yourself in so many different situations. I go through checks. Play calls, checks. What I’m going to see, what I’m thinking. After that you let it go and you’re ready to play.”
Bo Levi Mitchell and the Stamps are looking to avoid being upset for the second Grey Cup in a row (Patrick Doyle/CFL.ca)
The only part that he was unsure of was what words should be said before kickoff on Sunday.
“I’ve got a couple of nuggets. I can guarantee you it’ll be something about kill, destroy, conquer and the Grey Cup will be in there,” he said.
“It’ll be a lot of attacking and we might even change it. It might not be where it usually is. It might be right on the field tomorrow instead of the locker room, so we can take it right now and take control. All the gas that I give everybody we can put it on the field.”
For everything that Bell has pushed out of his memory from last year, 2014 flows much more freely for him.
“When we won in ’14 I can remember the day after. I remember that. We went to the hockey game. I remember going on the ice (for the ceremonial faceoff), doing things like that,” he said.
He remembers the faces in the crowd at the parade later that week and the feeling that stayed with him through the off-season, the wholeness that comes from the mission having been accomplished. He hasn’t felt that for almost three years now. The man that paints his face like an ancient soldier about to go into battle wants it back and doesn’t want to forget it.
“The true satisfaction doesn’t come until after we win,” he said.
