Damien Alford says before his nickname was \u201cMoose\u201d, it was \u201cBambi\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy freshman year, I was all skinny and didn\u2019t have that much weight on me,\u201d recalled the\u00a0Calgary\u00a0Stampeders wide receiver Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy coach called me Bambi before the season started. As my career went on and I got bigger, stronger, I got more experience, I had a breakout game versus Army. He said, \u2018we can\u2019t call him Bambi no more. We\u2019ve got to call him Moose.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old from Montreal has quickly become an offensive threat in his rookie CFL season with five touchdown catches in his last three games.<\/p>\n
The Stampeders (5-1) ride a three-game win streak into Thursday\u2019s clash with the Montreal Alouettes (4-2) at McMahon Stadium.<\/p>\n
The six-foot-six, 224-pound Alford was the first overall pick in this year\u2019s CFL draft by\u00a0Calgary\u00a0after a season with Utah and four at Syracuse. It was the first time since 2014 that the Stampeders owned the first selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year was really just to come out, do what I got to do, learn from the best that are here, and whenever my name gets called to go on the field and execute the way I know I\u2019m able to,\u201d Alford said.<\/p>\n
Vernon Adams Jr., expressed an interest in large targets to throw at when\u00a0Calgary\u00a0acquired the quarterback from the B.C. Lions last November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Stampeders signed the six-foot-four Dominique Rhymes \u2014 Adams\u2019 former Lions teammate \u2014 in free agency. Stampeders coach and general manager Dave Dickenson confirmed Wednesday that Alford also filled that desire.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt plays into our thought process for sure,\u201d Dickenson said. \u201cWe knew Vernon likes those big targets and he trusts them. And also, there\u2019s just not that many of them, especially in the Canadian side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alford has caught five of Adams\u2019 eight touchdown throws over the last three games, but the quarterback says Alford is still a work in progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a super-raw, super-talented kid,\u201d Adams said. \u201cWe think the world of him, but he\u2019s still learning and still learning some different things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Complementing Alford\u2019s exploits in recent games has been a\u00a0Calgary\u00a0defence that\u2019s contributed four touchdowns while giving up the league\u2019s fewest at seven.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never had a defence like this that has had my back the way they have my back,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n
The Stampeders and Alouettes tied 19-19 at McMahon the last time the two clubs clashed Sept. 14, 2024.<\/p>\n
The Als, tied for first in the East Division with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, eked out a narrow 26-25 win over the Toronto Argonauts last week.<\/p>\n
With Montreal quarterback Davis Alexander on the six-game injured list with a hamstring ailment from that game, McLeod Bethel-Thompson gets his third start of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old veteran, looking for his first win of 2025, has thrown for 472 yards and three touchdowns. The Alouettes dealt quarterback Cody Fajardo to the Edmonton Elks in December for Bethel-Thompson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt better the second start after the first one and the third one is just a growth from there, so I definitely feel more comfortable and I\u2019m excited to have that show on the field,\u201d Bethel-Thompson said.<\/p>\n
While\u00a0Calgary\u00a0leads the league in average rushing yards per game (130), Montreal\u2019s defence allows a league-low 5.8 yards per run.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re number one at the run stoppage, they\u2019re number one at rushing, you\u2019re going to battle strength versus strength,\u201d Alouettes head coach Jason Maas said. \u201cI know they\u2019re not going to not run it, so we\u2019re going stop it. Our guys are looking forward to that challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you\u2019re going to find every one of our guys are excited about playing this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
IN AND OUT<\/p>\n
Stampeder running back Jeshrun Antwi, who missed the last three games with an ankle injury, returns to face his former team of four seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do feel like getting Antwi back against his former team, motivated and also good at special teams, but also one of our smarter guys that has played against this defence in practice a lot, he could be a big asset, not only just when he\u2019s playing, but on the sideline as well.\u201d Dickenson said.<\/p>\n
Montreal returner Lincoln Victor, who attended the Ottawa Redblacks training camp, will make his CFL debut in place of James Letcher Jr. (broken hand).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Safety Scott Hutter of London, Ont., makes his Alouettes debut after five seasons with the Edmonton Elks. Als receiver Tyson Philpot, the brother of Calgary\u2019s Jalen Philpot, will miss a second straight game with a knee injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damien Alford says before his nickname was \u201cMoose\u201d, it was \u201cBambi\u201d. \u201cMy freshman year, I was all skinny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-19775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}