Ticats Redblacks preview

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Win or lose on Sunday, the Tiger-Cats have had their last practice of the season at Tim Hortons field. If they do beat the Bedblacks in the east final on Sunday, the Ticats will pack up and head to the Grey Cup in Winnipeg. And as natalie marconi reports, that’s exactly what the Ticats intend to do.

There was more than a breeze at Tim Hortons field today. These just might be the winds of change. Maybe a change in the Ticats’ luck? Or perhaps, a change in attitude:

“Man I don’t have anything to say. I gotta help my teammates win the Grey Cup.” Simoni Lawrence with nothing to say? Perhaps he’s following Jeremiah Masoli’s lead, saying only what he feels needs to be said about practice this week: “It was really good, getting a few more reps under our belt, just getting better.”

Kent Austin has been pleased with his “quiet” quarterback’s preparation: “Just the command of the game plan that we have going into this game. He’s preparing really hard, as everybody does in that room. So, we know that the most important thing for a quarterback is to make great decisions and he’s been working at that.”

Austin is also glad to have Luke Tasker back after missing two days of practice, because he makes quarterbacks feel at ease with his uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.

Tasker says this week feels a lot like the one leading up to the Eastern final in 2013 when the Ticats had to travel to enemy territory in Toronto, and face a team that had also beaten them in the regular season.

Ticats receiver Luke Tasker: “We went into that game the same way, you don’t know what’s going to happen and you prepare the same way. And once plays start getting made you start realizing how the game’s gonna go and what you can attack.”

Lawrence says: “But the big thing is you gotta execute and you gotta stay focussed because I feel like everybody is going to play physically at a high level but it’s going to be a mental aspect where you gotta stay in the game and play hard.”

If not, they’re gone with the wind.