Brady Oliveira<\/a> knows how important a fast start could be.<\/p>\n\u201cI think every season is important to start off on the right track with a win, but it\u2019s even more important when you\u2019re playing a West Division opponent,\u201d Oliveira told CFL.ca back in April. \u201cWith us being in the West and playing Calgary in Calgary, starting 1-0 against a division opponent is massive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all saw how last year went down to the wire with the playoff race, so it\u2019s really important for us to start fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. TIEBREAKERS COULD COME INTO PLAY AGAIN<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
With so many evenly matched teams in the West, players understand that June results can become extremely important by the end of the season.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s especially true for Calgary quarterback Vernon Adams Jr.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always great to start off the year and get up early and often,\u201d said Adams Jr. \u201cEspecially in a league game, because sometimes that matters in the tiebreakers at the end of the year when you play a team three times.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can get a win early against one of your rivals, it helps in the long run. So it\u2019s very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. BOTH TEAMS STILL HAVE GREY CUP EXPECTATIONS<\/p>\n
Despite finishing third and fourth in the West last season, both Calgary and Winnipeg enter 2026 expecting to compete for the 113th Grey Cup.<\/p>\n
Quarterback Zach Collaros praised Calgary\u2019s consistency and the challenge the Stampeders present every year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important. It\u2019s a division game, so those two points really matter,\u201d said Collaros. \u201cThey\u2019re a great organization and they\u2019ve had tons of success since I\u2019ve been in the league. (Head coach and general manager) Dave Dickenson is one of the main reasons for that.<\/p>\n
\u201cVernon Adams Jr. is an unbelievable talent at quarterback. He\u2019s accomplished a ton already in his career and he\u2019s a guy who can take over a football game at any moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calgary receiver Jalen Philpot also expects another heavyweight battle between two contenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey added Tim White<\/a> and made some big signings in the off-season, so we don\u2019t expect them to be worse than they were last year,\u201d said Philpot. \u201cThey were a good team last year and they\u2019re going to be even better.\u201d<\/p>\nWith two veteran quarterbacks, Grey Cup expectations and crucial divisional points already on the line, the West Division spotlight will shine brightly on McMahon Stadium on Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2014 A tightly contested West Division race in 2025 left little room for error, and both the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-697369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697369","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=697369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n