A high-stakes affair is scheduled for Friday night in Vancouver with the Calgary Stampeders in town to face the BC Lions. The Week 9 showdown from the Lions’ Den gets underway at 8 p.m. MDT.

The winner will sit alone atop the West Division and will also wrap up the head-to-head season series.

In their last 10 regular-season trips to the west coast, the Stampeders sport a .500 record. In terms of all-time success, Calgary is 43-47-3 in 93 duels from BC.

BC Place, the location of this week’s tilt, was the site of the Stampeders most-recent Grey Cup championship in 2014.

The Stamps currently hold the West Division’s No. 1 seed at 5-1-1, including a 2-1-1 mark as the visiting side. Meanwhile, the Leos are in hot pursuit of the Red and White, sitting at 5-2. BC is 2-1 as the host team in 2016 and has won three of its last four games overall.

Back in Dave Dickenson’s head-coaching debut on June 25, BC claimed a come-from-behind 20-18 win on home field. Calgary has since strung together an unbeaten streak of five victories and one tie.

Then, in Week 6, the Stampeders returned the favour in even more dramatic fashion, rallying from 15 points down late in the fourth quarter for a wild 44-41 overtime triumph at McMahon Stadium.

The Stampeders defence enters tomorrow’s action having conceded fewer than 20 points in three of the last four contests. Calgary has surrendered the fewest points to date among all CFL teams, although a significant challenge awaits as the Lions are the league’s highest-scoring squad.

On an individual note, Marquay McDaniel has put together back-to-back outings with identical statlines of eight catches for 110 yards in two battles with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Rookie receiver DaVaris Daniels will enter the lineup in place of the injured Greg Wilson. Daniels was recently activated from the practice roster and played three seasons at Notre Dame where he recorded six receptions for 115 yards against Alabama in the 2013 BCS National Championship.

Key Matchup

Both kick returners to be featured in Friday’s tilt have big-play potential in Roy Finch of the Stamps and Chris Rainey of the Lions. Finch has posted the longest kickoff return in the league this year with a 59-yard run-back while Rainey’s 95-yard punt return is also tops among CFLers in 2016. Rainey has taken two punts back for touchdowns against the Stampeders this season – the aforementioned 95-yarder as well as the game-winning score in the season-opener.

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Comparative team stats (through Week 8)