Reporting on the Lions this season has truly been something special, from uncovering the inspirational story behind local phenom Jason Jubinville's ascension to the record books, to simply watching the team develop from a hopeful bunch of kids in the pre-season to the finely tuned group of gridiron warriors currently poised to advance to the Provincial Tier III Finals.
Much of the Lions development, and my involvement with the team, must be credited to the dedicated coaching staff, led by Todd Tanasichuk and John Lumby, who have welcomed me to this community with open arms.
I can honestly say that these men love their football and they love their community, but most of all, they deeply care about the development and well-being of every student to ever put on a Lions jersey.
Needless to say, when they invited me to travel with the team on the road to provincials, I did not hesitate to accept.
The boys boarded the bus at 8:30 a.m. to get on the road to Stettler where they would face the Wildcats at 2 p.m., and the long ride there was all business.
There was a mild tension that could be felt in the air as the bus rolled towards its destination, William E. Hays Composite School, where the battle for a berth in the Provincial Tier III Northern finals would take place.
What I found most intriguing on the trip to Stettler was Lumby's inclusion of a tactic he calls visualization. I watched as the starting lineup repositioned at the front of the bus, and Lumby began reading out plays.
The players would bow their heads and close their eyes, as offensive tackle Zac Smith or slot back Dominic Dion would read out the name and description of the intended play, simulating the huddle.
“Ready . . . go," quarterback Brenden McKay would yell out, and every team member would focus on flawlessly executing the play within their imaginations.
“The defense thought I was Drew Brees on that one," Jason Jubinville said aloud, verbally relaying his visual of a play that saw him take on the quarterback role and throw a pass 100 feet in the air to connect with a receiver in the end zone, to which the whole team had a laugh.
“It's almost like a practice because when we actually run plays physically in practice, it's really the brain that we're trying to train and get reps in. It's almost like we're repping plays because they go through the play in their mind," Lumby said of his idea to include visualization on team bus rides.
The goal is for the boys to visualize everything, Lumby said. If they are supposed to run a fake, they visualize running that fake. “The idea is that they visualize a nice big gain every time and everything is working."
Visualization has clearly had an impact on the Lions, who stepped back onto the bus riding the emotional high of their 31-14 Provincial Tier III Northern Semifinal victory.
Now if the road to Stettler was a business meeting, then the ride home was a party. The roads were far from perfection, and the frigid temperatures forced coaches Lumby and Tanasichuk to trade off duties of de-fogging the windshield for our driver with whatever they could find, but none of that dampened the mood.
The excitement amongst the team could be felt every minute of the way home, whether it was in the form of quick one-to-three syllable chants, or a sing-along of “Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen with Lumby and Tanasichuk jamming away on air guitars.
In a total of almost eight hours aboard the rolling roar known as the St. Paul Regional High School bus, I was amazed to find that the conversation almost never strayed from the topic of football. Even the songs and chants held relevance to the day's football odyssey.
Conversations included discussions on who would win the next day's CFL Divisional Semifinals, stories of Tanasichuk's own days as a high school football player and a chat about Ryan Chrapko's bone-crushing hit that earned him the moniker of “C-Train" - a name passed down to Chrapko by its former holder, Lions alumni Colin Trainor.
By listening to what these players and coaches had to say about the sport of football, it became evident that every guy on that bus was exactly where he belonged.
When the bus pulled into the St. Paul city limits, players frantically began attempting to slide down the frozen windows on the bus, while still coming up with new chants from “Lions, Lions, Lions" to simply “Chant, chant, chant," and everything in between.
When a few players managed to pry open the frosted bus window glass, the singing erupted louder than ever before into a now infamous song that I can only describe as the Olé song.
I found out that this is one of the team's few post-game rituals. Upon return from every victorious road game, the windows come down and the victory calls goes out, letting everyone within earshot hear their message: the Lions have won again.
