Close his eyes and he can still feel the wind whipping sadistically at his skin, like a wet towel snapped in the breeze.

Feel his eyes watering, the ferocious cold. Oncoming sensory deprivation.

Even four and a half decades later.

“How did I make the kick there?’’ repeats Larry Robinson, now 73. “Gee, don’t ask me. I have no idea.

“All I know is that I was trying to kick them from that distance in warm-up and wasn’t even close.”

Nov. 22, 1970.

The final play of the third game of a best-of-three Western Division final, Robinson’s 32-yard field goal into a biting prairie gale in sub-Arctic/barely human conditions giving the Calgary Stampeders a 15-14 victory that propelled them into the Grey Cup classic in Montreal.

That moment, that game, ranks as one of the most famous in CFL history; indisputably the most memorable of any Stampeder trip into the pit of pain famed back then as Taylor Field, known today as Mosaic Stadium.

And now, Saturday, we reach what surely must mark the final visit.

With the new, shiny, all-the-whistles-and-bells $278 million, 33,000-seat New Mosaic Stadium set to launch a good wind-aided Dave Ridgway field goal away from the old barn next season, everything changes. Everything upgrades.

Larry Robinson

Revered or reviled, antique or atrocity, depending on colour of preference – the choice being green, or anything else – Taylor Field/Mosaic Stadium has left a legacy of memories for everyone, Stampeders fans included.

That Western final of 1970, for instance.

“We had a defensive line coach at that time from somewhere like Oklahoma,’’ recalls the Stampeders’ greatest-ever defensive lineman, John Helton, “and he told us: ‘Men, you’ve gotta take those gloves off. If you don’t, you’re not going to be able to feel anything out there.’

“Hey, we couldn’t feel anything regardless.

“Meanwhile, he was on the sidelines dressed like an Eskimo, with mukluks and a parka.

“Used to be whatever I could put my hands on, I could hold it. I had a really good grip. After that game, my hands never felt quite so strong. When we got to Montreal (for the Grey Cup), I still had blisters all over my hands.

“There’s a point in an athlete’s career where you can literally feel your body’s strength and abilities turn downward. You feel a diminishment.

“That game, for me, was it.”

The Roughriders have played football on that spot, at some level, since 1921. The old barn has housed gods and charlatans, great teams and bad, become synonymous for its rabid fan base and fading relevance. Time marches on. Nothing is forever.

Not even Taylor Field/Mosaic Stadium.

When longtime Stamps’ O-lineman Jeff Pilon first saw it as far back as 2000, he had to rub the disbelief out of his eyes.

“The side of the locker room you got taped up in, they had this garbage bag stuck to some pipes to divert any water from leaks into a bucket,’’ he laughs. “High-tech. State of the art, let me tell you.

“Playing there … the old turf was a death trap. The wind would howl. And sure the crowd was loud, crude. But I never felt intimidated. It was funny more than anything because you knew at the bench that you were going to get ripped on.’’

New stadiums, like the new Mosaic, are all beautiful, functional, fabulous. Whereas a place like the old Mosaic remains cut out of a piece of time, a remembrance of bygone days.

For Robinson, the sensation of playing there took him back to his childhood.

“Whenever we’d talk in there, I thought I was going into the Ogden rink. Honestly. I grew up in Ogden. They had the big pot-bellied stove in the middle of the locker room (in Regina) then. You heard stories about equipment shrinking because of the heat from that pot-bellied stove. Melted the helmets.

“But that’s what it felt like: The shack at the Ogden rink.”

Current Stamps head coach Dave Dickenson, a red-and-white clad invader of a later vintage than Robinson, recalls one specific game there.

“They had this old-school sand-based turf that would be sprayed with water before the game,” he says. “It was a hot day. We went into overtime and the moisture came up from underneath and in OT you could literally not stand up. It was like trying to move on a magic carpet, from the moisture coming up through the turf. A 52-52 tie game, as I remember.

“Football’s football. What they did have there, though, was this crown in the field. I’d throw the ball high because there was, not a word of a lie, a good three to three-and-a-half foot drop. You looked across the field at the other sideline and you could only see their coach and players from the waist up.

“It was crazy.”

If there is a royal lineage involved in the foundation of the place, Stamps running backs coach Marc Mueller would surely qualify. His granddad, of course, was the legendary Ron Lancaster.

“For me, it’s just always … been there,’’ says Mueller. “My dad (Larry) was an assistant general manager with the Riders when I was born so I was around the locker room, around the stadium, lots as a kid. And obviously when my grandpa started coaching Edmonton, I was there every road game the Eskimos were there.

“In Regina, all the football’s played there. It’s become kind of a meeting place.

“Obviously it’ll be a bit sad to go in there one last time, but we leave with a victory Saturday and I’ll be happy.”

While Riders partisans everywhere will be busy dabbing at leaky tear ducts in bidding goodbye, there are those only too happy to say good riddance.

Stamps equipment guru George Hopkins has taken that short flight to Regina and back again more times than he cares to count since 1977; has celebrated many big wins, endured a few tough losses. There’s no nostalgia in Saturday’s visit for him.

“I won’t miss it at all. I can honestly tell you that.

“Let’s just say I’m not a fan of their fans.

“What they’ve done the last 10 years or so, installing suites in the end zone, that $1.99 paint sale thing they had going … it’s lipstick on a pig.

“I think the (Riders’) staff themselves would tell you they wish they’d been out of there halfway through this season. They’ve got a beautiful new stadium to play in, to work in.”

The cauldron of sound and verbal mudslinging that awaits interlopers inside has become the stuff of legend.

“Those fans weren’t very nice sometimes, back in the ‘70s,’’ is how Robinson, all political correctness, puts it wryly. “They’d throw stuff at you. Nothing drastic. Just the odd pop can whizzing by your ear.”

If you happened to be one of the heroes in green, you were safe. Others, beware.

“If I was a host team,’’ Pilon acknowledges, “I’d think that place was great, cause I don’t want the guys coming in to be comfortable. I want them thinking about noise, about how nasty and dirty the locker rooms are, the condition of the field, the fans yelling all kinds of stuff.

“IF you’re the host team.

“If you’re not …”

One of who has experienced the reception from both sides of the coin is Stamp tailback Jerome Messam, who spent two seasons as a Rider.

“Even before going there to play, I felt there was no other atmosphere to compare in the Canadian Football League,’’ he says. “The way the stadium is set up, the fans so close to you, and how loud it gets. They just keep it rocking.

“I’m sure they’ve got some old ghosts kicking around; old football spirits. They’re great hecklers there.

“When you play there, they love you. It’s great.”

When you don’t, well, not so much.

“I’ll say this for them: No matter what the weather was like or the team’s record was, the fans were there,’’ says Pilon. “The place was full.

“And, I guess, isn’t that what sport is about? People coming out, having a good time, enjoying a game, enjoying their friends and just kicking back and cutting loose?

“For me, if I was a Saskatchewan fan, Taylor Field would be fantastic. Your buddies are all liquored up, wearing puke-green and watermelons on their heads. You look ridiculous. But everybody looks ridiculous, so it’s okay.

“A fun place to go.

“I want to be there when they close that stadium. People will be ripping out everything they can carry.

Jeff Pilon & Henry Burris at Mosaic in 2009

“Those fans … they’re the engine that powers the car. They’re just moving a little ways away; changing the body of the car from a Chevy Chevette to a Porsche.

“It’s gonna be wild.”

Revered and reviled. Whatever camp you’re in, pro or con, Taylor Field/Mosaic Stadium is nearing its end. So much has happened, been written and said about the place. It’s iconic, historic.

And Saturday marks what surely must be the final trip into the mouth of the old green monster for the Riders’ bitter rival to the west.

Some will mourn its passing, others unashamedly rejoice.

“I suppose for Riders fans it’s like buying your first house,’’ equates John Helton. “Not many people stay in their first house their whole lives, do they?

“You want to upgrade. Get that additional bedroom, or a fireplace or what have you.

“Do you enjoy the extra room, the bigger backyard, the amenities in the new house?

“Of course you do.

“But that other house, the old one, it’ll always be your first house. You lived there. You’ll always remember it. You’ll always love it.

“It’ll always be special.”