Next Game
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ARGONAUTS.CA STAFF
TORONTO – Argos head coach Jim Barker is hoping that his team’s week-long excursion to Moncton, New Brunswick is a warm up for a similar week-long trip to Edmonton in November.
Barker and the rest of the Toronto Argonauts boarded a flight to Moncton late Tuesday to prepare for the first regular season game played out East against the Edmonton Eskimos. Complete with parties, community initiatives, festivals and tailgates, the week, appropriately titled Touchdown Atlantic, has been dubbed a mini-Grey Cup and it seems as though the Argos are treating it as such.
Following their gutsy 17-13 win over Winnipeg last Sunday, Barker said, “We are treating this like our East Final this week and we leave Tuesday for our Grey Cup.”
If Grey Cup week is indeed being used as the model for which the Touchdown Atlantic experience is formed, it too will come with its own set of distractions outside the game of football – something that Barker is not overly concerned about.
“The distractions are there for Edmonton too,” Barker said. “Part of what we talk about is our ability to focus. Should this team improve between now and the rest of the season, we have to know how to do this and find a way to win.”
Slated as an Argos home game, Touchdown Atlantic will be a unique experience for the Boatmen not unlike their first trip out East when they hosted the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in a 2005 pre-season contest in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Unlike that trip however, the Double Blue will hold all of their practices in Moncton beginning with their first one Wednesday afternoon.
Despite the rather hectic and unusual change of schedule, the comforting notion for CFL fans across the country is that the importance of the trip is not lost on Barker’s club.
“We are excited about going to Moncton,” Barker stated. “We want to go there and show the people of Moncton what the CFL is all about and that is going to be a fun week for us.”
The Argos close the Touchdown Atlantic experience with their Sunday afternoon game against the Esks. Kickoff is scheduled for 12:00 p.m. ET (1:00 p.m. AT). It will be live on TSN or on fan590.com.