Dave Stubbs
The National Post

When Alouettes guard Paul Lambert considers the dog-eared Big O, site of Sunday's 96th Grey Cup, he sees a side that's as bright as his personality.

"I know taxpayers have put a lot of money into that place," said Lambert, a 6-foot-2, 316-pound Montrealer who's forked over his share. "Certainly they won't get their tax-money's worth on Sunday, but it will be pretty close."

The Alouettes hope to become the first Canadian Football League team since the 1994 B. C. Lions to win the Grey Cup championship on home turf when they take on the Calgary Stampeders.

More than 60,000 tickets have been sold -- a few thousand more are available -- to guarantee the east-end mausoleum will tremble like it hasn't since the 1980s and '94 championship-calibre heyday of baseball's late, sometimes-mourned Expos.

And the gridiron heroes offer this advice: give Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo the quiet he needs to call his plays, then shake the building to its foundation to drown out the signal-calling of Stampeders quarterback Henry Burris.

Forget the tuques. Wear hard hats.

"I remember [the final days of ] the Expos," Lambert said. "It was sad -- you could hear the echoes in the stands. But when the stadium is full, it's absolutely electrifying. We're going to feed off that."

Added veteran centre Bryan Chiu: "It's going to be a ruckus. I'm sure I'm going to feel the ground shake out there. This is the dream of a lifetime, honestly. I'm having trouble sleeping, thinking about it."

Yesterday morning at the frightening all-you-can-eat media breakfast at a downtown hotel, Alouettes players, coaches and management tried with limited success to rein in their enthusiasm for the opportunity that's before them.

If this were a horse race, the question was put to the thoroughbred-sized Lambert, were the Alouettes now in the starting gate three-and-a-half days before Sunday's kickoff ?

"No, we're still in the stable, being brushed and having our horseshoes checked," he replied, grinning.

"We still have two key practices, and as things fade away into morning, that's when we'll be making that lovely jaunt over to the gate." "We plan on playing hard enough that it will take us at least a month to fully recover," Lambert vowed. "We plan on being a really physical team. We'll play vicious, honest, within-the-rules football and we expect Calgary will do the same."

The Alouettes and Stampeders have met twice in the Grey Cup, Montreal winning 28-15 in 1949 and 23-10 in 1970, both games played in Toronto.

The Alouettes' last home-field title was a 41-6 rout of the Edmonton Eskimos in 1977, the so-called Ice Bowl famous for defensive-back Tony Proudfoot's inspired suggestion that his teammates put staples in their shoes to improve their footing on the turf/rink of the then-roofless Big O.

It wouldn't be until 2002 that the Alouettes would win their next and most recent Cup, a 25-16 victory over the Eskimos in Edmonton. Montreal has been to three Grey Cups since then, losing in 2003, 2005 and 2006.

Calvillo soldiered through the 2002 triumph with a torn ankle ligament suffered on Edmonton's glacial Commonwealth Stadium field, voted the game's outstanding player for his leadership.
Sunday will be Calvillo's swan song, at least in a Grey Cup played in Montreal, and the perennial all-star has plenty of responsibility on his broad, experienced shoulders.

"Trying to get to this game is difficult, whether at home or on the road," Calvillo said. "History shows it's difficult to win the Grey Cup at home. This is a special occasion. We know it's a big challenge against an excellent team."

Calvillo has been avoiding the hype of downtown the past few days. But family chores at the mall and beyond early in the week gave him a feel for the embrace of his city.

"It was actually the first time people stopped me to say, 'Wow, congratulations, good luck,' and it was like that at every corner," he said. "In the regular season, people would just come up and say hello.

"Part of my mental preparation has been to understand that this is what's going to happen, and to try to block it out and just concentrate on football."

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