The band is on the field!

Well, with all due respect to the play that has actually become "The Play" — the historic Stanford-Cal ending from 1982 — what happened in Edmonton on Thursday night is my equivalent.

In fact this"The Play" was arguably the best thing I've ever watched my beloved Blue Bombers do. Big enough for ESPN to think it worthy of a little air time.

My colleague Swatter — the famous Barney to my Fred on local basketball broadcasts — called it the Immaculate Reception and ironic that I, as devout Steeler fan, didn't even think of that reference originally. Instead, I thought of Stanford-Cal. Of course, I thought of Nebraska-Michigan from the 2005 Alamo Bowl.

What the ramifications of pulling that win out of the jaws of defeat will be, however, remains to be seen but as we sit here six games into the Blue Bombers season, it looks pretty pivotal. Think about it, you go from having a game in your grasp, yours for the taking before a shocking fumble sways everything madly in the other direction. Now you're looking at having an L hung on you in a game you shouldn't have lost; A deflating defeat that sends you to 3-3 and puts the term mediocre suddenly on a season that had started promisingly.

There's a big difference in 4-2 and 3-3.

So instead of stinging, life-draining loss you get envigorating, thirst-quenching victory. And I, my friends, come to work with a little extra hop in my step today.

Consistency issues offensively are still lingering, however, for the Bombers. An inability to sustain drives really makes watching this team a nerve-wracking experience. There hasn't been — save for the thrashing of Edmonton a few weeks back — a time this season that Winnipeg has taken advantage of a lead and put the foot down. And teams are hanging around and hanging around and then ... well let's just say those kinds of Thursdays don't show up very often.

Other random stuff from the game: Danny Maciocia should have some questions to answer after that loss. It is utterly unimaginable that the Esks would BLITZ on the final play of the game when the opposing team has 100 yards to go to score. If you watch that clip, the Eskimos put seven guys in the box and blitz a corner leaving basically man-on-man coverage on the Bomber receivers. It was a completely brain dead decision — and Friday's Edmonton Journal said as much — that Maciocia should have to answer to. The theory perhaps says that sending a blitz forces Glenn into a quicker read, a faster throw and a shorter pass play. That theory applies when there's eight minutes left in the second quarter, not when there's four seconds left in the fourth. (Don't forget, this is the guy who prematurely celebrated a Grey Cup win last year before the game was over, then realized they still had another play to go — causing national humiliation — and then reacted to the eventual victory in a manner that can only be described as something you'd see in the ballet or an off-Broadway musical. So, let's just say the jury is reconsidering its verdict on him.)

Memo to Coach: I'm officially extending an invitation to you Mr. Maciocia to come visit me and watch me play a game of EA Sports Madden '06 so you can see how it is you should defend a lead on a last-second play. It's called Prevent, Dan, and you will be able to find it in your dime coverages section of your playbook. You see, I tend to drop all my virtual players back in coverage. I know what you're saying: "But then they can complete a 20-yard pass!" That's true, they can. But 20 is not enough yards when they need 100. Get it? Oh look who I'm talking to! You're a professional football coach, I don't need to tell you this. After all, you get paid to strategize football. Ah forget it, send the house. Nothing bad could possibly come from that.

Winnipeg still hasn't allowed a 100-yard rusher and now has back-to-backs with a frisky Hamilton Tiger-Cats team. While the Ticats sport the league's worst record I'm not assuming two wins here. Looking ahead, however, to the very real possibility of being 6-2 is a nice thought. Side note: My "source" in Hamilton tells me that the vibe around the Steel City before the Cats finally got off the schnide was that Hamilton's first win would come against Winnipeg. See, that's the perverted logic that makes Hamilton fans so loathsome and, well, so utterly stupid.

Side note No.2: While discussing the Tiger-Cats woeful situation with a die-hard fan a couple of weeks ago, I suggested Hamilton and the Saskatchewan Roughriders just put together their two pathetic franchises. After all, each of their recipes of middling success mixed with abject failure have only produced a melange of dreadful sucking. What, you ask, will that team be called?

The Saskatchilton Tiger Riders.

In the words of the anonymous sportscaster on an episode of Seinfeld: "You gotta love sports!"