The Roughriders will have a full house Saturday
The Saskatchewan Roughriders are hoping a sellout crowd will sell out when it comes to being loud on Saturday.
The CFL team announced Wednesday that its upcoming home game against the Calgary Stampeders has sold out, with all 33,350 of Mosaic Stadium’s seats being purchased.
“Nice!” Roughriders fullback Spencer Moore said Wednesday when told of the sellout. “I hope it’s a very hostile atmosphere. I hope that it presents some challenges to (Calgary’s) offence and we can use that energy, build off it and do some good things.”
The game Saturday will be Saskatchewan’s fourth at home in the 2018 regular season, following contests against the Toronto Argonauts (on June 15), Montreal Alouettes (June 30) and Hamilton Tiger-Cats (July 5). The Roughriders defeated Toronto and Hamilton but lost to Montreal.
The contest against the Alouettes also was a sellout, with ticket sales no doubt sparked by the fact the game was a tribute to the SJHL’s Humboldt Broncos, the community of Humboldt and the first responders who assisted the Broncos after their bus was involved in an accident April 6.
Ticket sales for Saturday’s contest likely reflect the identity and quality of the opponent. The Stampeders (5-0-0) enter the game as the CFL’s only unbeaten team and, once again, as the squad against which other teams measure themselves.
“Coming into the season, this is one of the games that everyone circles — us included,” said Moore, whose team takes a 3-2-0 record into the contest. “We always look forward to playing Calgary. They’ve been the premier team in the West Division for a long time.
“In order to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best and I think the fans recognize that. They know it’s a big game and they look forward to this game long before the day actually arrives. They come in charged up and ready to go and obviously we feed off that.”
That’s the goal again on Saturday.
“We feed off that noise.
The Roughriders, who go into the week with the league lead in sold and scanned attendance, are hoping the sellout crowd can make life miserable for the visitors.
“For the defence, there’s a lot of motivation to know that we’ve got the crowd behind us,” said defensive end Willie Jefferson. “But for opposing teams, that’s the 13th Man.
“When (offences) have to deal with all that noise, it’s hard for receivers to hear the cadence from the quarterback and it’s hard for the offensive line to hear the snap count. It gives the defence and the home team an advantage.
“We feed off that noise. When the offence is on the sideline and hears the crowd cheering for the defence and hears how loud it is, it’s motivation for them when they get back on the field to score so the fans can get even louder.”
The Roughriders have claimed for years that their home is one of the toughest places in the league in which to play and they don’t believe that changed when their home did in 2017.
The fans behind the east-side bench may not be as close now as they were at historic Mosaic Stadium — and thus they may not be able to be as nasty as they used to be toward the visitors — but the new facility overall may be louder than its predecessor.
“The old stadium was a little bit more open and there weren’t as many fans as far as the capacity goes,” said cornerback Jovon Johnson. “This new stadium holds the noise in with the top and we have more fans in here to cheer, so it gives us a lot more of an advantage now than it did at the old stadium.”
“The crowd noise at the old stadium was amazing just because of the environment,” added Jefferson. “But with the way the stadium’s acoustics have changed — with the top, with the fans being where they are and how it’s set up — everything stays inside the stadium when it gets loud.”
That’s fine by Calgary linebacker Alex Singleton.
“I only got to play once in the old stadium, but there’s always the atmosphere,” he said during a CFL-sponsored conference call Wednesday. “Rider fans are Rider fans for a reason. The hate towards us is there, but it’s fun to go out there and play a game.”
In reality, the Stampeders have had their share of fun in Regina in recent seasons.
Calgary has beaten the Roughriders in its past six visits (including pre-season contests) to Saskatchewan since losing 36-21 on July 5, 2013. That streak includes a 39-12 victory in an exhibition game on June 8.
The Roughriders went 5-4-0 at home in the 2017 regular season and are 2-1-0 at home this season. Their rabid fan base can only take them so far, though, and head coach-GM Chris Jones wants to see his squad get more consistent at home.
“You need to get to where you play really good at home,” Jones said. “If there is a home-field advantage, it’s very marginal across the league from year to year. Calgary has been very good at their place for a long time. It would be nice for us to be able to do the same thing.”
