CALGARY – For one team, it's a standard Week 10 game; for the other, a return for the first time in nearly a decade.

The University of Calgary Dinos welcome the Hardy Cup to McMahon Stadium for the ninth straight season and the 10th time in 11 years, and they'll face a Saskatchewan Huskies team playing with renewed confidence after knocking off UBC in overtime in the semifinal last week. The 82nd edition of the Canada West football championship game goes Saturday at McMahon, with kickoff just after 1 p.m. TELUS Optik 778 (Alberta/B.C.), SaskTel (Saskatchewan), and BellMTS (Manitoba) will have live television coverage, with exclusive streaming on CanadaWest.tv.

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The winner heads east to face the Ontario champion in the U SPORTS Mitchell Bowl next weekend, with a trip to the Vanier Cup in Quebec City on the line.

There's plenty of history between these two teams, which have combined to dominate Canada West over the past four decades. And while the Dinos got the better of the two regular season match-ups – winning 37-28 in Saskatoon Sept. 14 and 33-13 Sept. 29 in Calgary – the Huskies have dropped just one other game this year at UBC. They got revenge last week with a 31-28 semifinal win over the Thunderbirds, sending them to Calgary for their first Hardy Cup appearance since 2009.

And the last four Calgary-Saskatchewan Hardy Cups? Two of them went to overtime, and a third – their last meeting in 2009 – was a 39-38 instant classic won on a missed last-second field goal.

HEADLINES

• Calgary hosting the Hardy Cup for the ninth straight season and the 10th time in 11 years
• The Dinos are 7-2 in the previous nine championship games at home during their current run
• Saskatchewan is the only team the Dinos haven't faced at home in the Hardy Cup since 2008 – their lone meeting during this stretch was back in 2009 at Saskatoon's Griffiths Stadium
• The Dinos are 5-1 all-time in playoff games against the Huskies, including semifinal wins in 2015 and 2016. The only blemish was a Hardy Cup loss in 1994 in Saskatoon
• Together, the Dinos and Huskies own 27 of the last 36 Hardy Cup titles, dating back to 1983: 15 for Calgary, 12 for Saskatchewan
• Calgary and Saskatchewan ranked first and second, respectively, on both sides of the football during the 2018 season

No. 3 CALGARY DINOS (8-0, 1-0)
Last week: defeated Manitoba 37-13


 

• Calgary dominated the Canada West all-star team with 11 selections, adding a quartet of major award winners: QB Adam Sinagra is the most outstanding player, WR Tyson Philpot is rookie of the year, DE Joel Van Pelt is the conference's outstanding lineman, and HC Wayne Harris is the CW coach of the year for the third time in three seasons
• Sinagra threw for 569 yards - the second-highest single game total in U SPORTS history - in the first game of the season between the two squads in Saskatoon
• The semifinal round wasn't a walk in the park for the Dinos, who got off to a slow start before a blocked punt and TD by Alex Basilis sparked the offence. Calgary pulled away late, taking a 37-16 win over the Manitoba Bisons
• The Dinos are 29-6 at home all-time in the playoffs, including a 14-2 record in Hardy Cup games at McMahon Stadium
• Calgary's offence led CW with 570.9 yards/game while allowing just 388
• Harris on facing the Huskies: "They're strong in every capacity, they play very disciplined. They don't necessarily do the most complicated things or run the most complex systems, but they play their systems well. They have some great talent along the lines

No. 6 SASKATCHEWAN HUSKIES (6-3)
Last week: defeated UBC 31-28 (OT)

 

• Saskatchewan snapped a nine-year playoff drought with their OT win at UBC last week, returning to postseason action after being on the outside looking in in 2017
• Fifth-year RB Tyler Chow led the conference in rushing with 640 yards on the season, one of four Huskies named CW all-stars. He is joined on the all-star team by OG Mattland Riley, DL Evan Machibroda, and DE Tristian Koronkiewicz
• Fifth-year QB Kyle Siemens engineered the game-tying drive in the last minute against UBC last week, sending the tilt to overtime where a Sean Stenger field goal sealed it for Saskatchewan
• Scott Flory on facing the Dinos: "They're deep, skilled, and athletic, and it's going to be a great challenge for us. They're a big-play team, they're athletic and fast, and they play physical. I'm proud of where we've got to at this point, but we know we still have some work to do."

-UC-