The Calgary Stampeders have officially booked their ticket to the 2016 playoffs, and the Red and White will now strive to ensure they won’t be the ones travelling.

Until the week leading up to Nov. 27, that is.

Considering Saturday’s winning result over the Ottawa RedBlacks, the Stamps are post-season bound for the 12th straight season. But the team’s self-proclaimed aspirations for this year extend far beyond securing a playoff berth.

“I think Bo (Levi Mitchell) said it best,” stated Rob Cote, one of four team captains for the 2016 campaign. “He said to me, and now we’re trying to relay to the team, that we’ve got a chance to do something really special with the start that we’ve had and the record that we have right now. If we keep winning games down the stretch, we have a chance to do something really special (in terms of) a regular-season record. You have to be climbing, getting better every week, especially toward the end. That’s what our big focus is.”

Five points clear of the Lions and Blue Bombers and 11 ahead of the Eskimos, Calgary could potentially wrap up the West Division on Thanksgiving Day in just under three weeks’ time.

Photo by Johany Jutras

“Looking ahead, you want that first-round bye and that home playoff game because you’re only playing one game and it’s at home,” nine-year veteran defensive back Brandon Smith explained. “Once you win that game, you can start working on the Grey Cup. So looking ahead, we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, but in retrospect and speaking from the past, that’s played a huge part in our Grey Cup runs.”

As for Cote, No. 26 has now qualified for the playoffs in each year throughout his decade-long career. The franchise’s present run dates even further back to when current Stampeders linebacker Alex Singleton was only 10 years old.

“That’s great, and I guess it just speaks to the organization,” remarked Cote, the humble running back hailing from nearby Cochrane, Alta. “That’s never the goal here – to make the playoffs. It’s never been ‘we just want to make the playoffs.’ We always have bigger goals than that and this team is no different.”

Calgary has hosted a playoff game in nine of the last 10 seasons, and four of those clashes have been a West Final following the first-round bye. And while the Stamps sport a mediocre .500 record in those contests, those two victories have led to Grey Cup championships in 2008 and 2014.

In terms of a league-wide analysis, seven of the last 10 Grey Cup winners had the added benefit of appearing in just one prior playoff game – at home – before being crowned CFL victors. The other three champions within that timespan were each second-place finishers, and a third-place team has not gone on to hoist the league trophy since Edmonton in 2005.

“We can’t really focus on the things that we’ve done up until now,” Smith stressed in reference to the Stampeders 10-1-1 record to this point. “We’ve got to continue to get better and we want to make sure when the season ends, we left nothing behind and we know we gave it everything that we had. We want to be playing the best football we can possibly be playing by that time so that going into the playoffs, we can go in with some momentum and a full head of steam.”