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Here’s a closer look at Friday’s 37-9 Stamps victory at BC Place:
Great after eight
This marks the fourth straight year the Stamps have at least six victories after their first eight games of the season.
Calgary is 6-1-1 this year after going 6-2 in both 2013 and 2015 and 7-1 in 2014.
The Stamps have been at least .500 at the eight-game mark nine consecutive years since starting the 2007 campaign with a 3-4-1 mark.
Nice start
That 6-1-1 record gives Dave Dickenson the best eight-game record for a new Stamps head coach since all the day back in 1948 when Les Lear was 8-0 in what would the only unbeaten season in Canadian professional football history.
The start puts Dickenson ahead of Lary Kuharich (6-2 in 1987) and Wally Buono (5-2-1 in 1990) for the second-best start by a new Calgary bench boss.
Declawing the Lions
That the Stamps have clinched the three-game season series with BC is remarkable considering its only the third week of August and its unusual to be done with a division rival this early in the season.
What’s even more astounding is that Calgary dropped the first meeting and was down 15 points with less than three minutes to play in the second. However, the Stamps scored the final 18 points in that contest and with Friday’s rubber-match win had a 55-9 scoreboard advantage over the Lions in the final 63 minutes or so of head-to-head action in 2016.
Calgary has claimed the season series with BC in four consecutive seasons.
D-lightful
The Saskatchewan Roughriders had a first-and-goal from the Calgary one-yard line with seven seconds left in the first half of a Week 8 contest.
Frank Beltre made the stop on quarterback Mitchell Gale for no gain on the next play. Then, it was Joshua Bell’s turn to drop Gale short of the goal line as time expired in the half, but an offside call gave the Riders one more crack.
Gale was momentarily stopped on the third try and only one final desperate swing to the right and plunge allowed him to get into the end zone.
The point is that particular sequence — three plays with the assistance of one penalty flag to get one yard — is the only touchdown the Stamps have allowed in the past 169 minutes and 50 seconds of action, or since the 9:10 mark of the first quarter of. an Aug. 4 Stamps-Riders game at McMahon Stadium.
The Stamps D has been exemplary in the past three games with a combined total of 34 points allowed. When you consider the Stamps scored more points than that in each of Weeks 7 and 9 (35 and 37, respectively) you have the recipe for a winning streak.
Next man up
Joe West started the season at one of the Stamps’ two wide-receiver positions and in three games the veteran had 17 catches for 206 yards.
A foot injury gave Greg Wilson a chance to shine and he 10 receptions for 182 yards and two touchdowns in his first three games before suffering an injury in his fourth.
Next man up was rookie DaVaris Daniels, who had a nice debut on Friday in Vancouver as he caught four balls for 66 yards.
A total of 15 different Stamps have made a reception so far in 2016.
Rene’s aim is true
Calgary kicker Rene Paredes was three-for-three on field goal tries on Friday and now has a streak of 23 consecutive makes.
That ties Paredes for the eighth longest streak in CFL history and he and Paul McCallum are the only kickers who appear twice on the list of the 10 longest run of successful attempts in CFL history. Paredes, of course, holds the CFL record with 39 consecutive field goals made.
Remarkably, nine of the 23 field goals in Paredes’ most recent streak have been from 40 yards or longer.
In case you missed it …
Here is more coverage from Friday’s victory: