As nigh impenetrable as Fort Knox.

Within its walls, the Stampeders are pure gold: 24-karat bars of bullion.

“You always protect your house,’’ says DB Jamar Wall, as he motions around the empty expanse of McMahon Stadium on an eve-of-battle Wednesday.  “And this is our house.

“You never want someone to break into your home – as Dave (Dickenson) puts it – and steal something. Hey, it’s your stuff. It belongs to you.

“So you protect it. At all costs.

“We want to win every game, naturally, but there’s just something about being at home, in our house, in front of our people.

“Something special.”

Thursday, the Stampeders put a nifty 10-game run of regular-season success dating back to Oct. 10 2015, in the crosshairs when those ornery cusses the Ottawa Redblacks pay a call.

Only four times in Calgary franchise history has a regular-season victory run reached as high as 11. Through 2016, as has been lavishly documented, the Western Division titans went a spotless 9-0, of course, en route to a 15-2-1 record.

The last time the aging ramparts of McMahon were successfully breached by invading forces was Oct. 10, 2015, a 15-11 loss to the Edmonton Eskimos.

“I think teams coming in understand this is a very tough place to play,’’ says quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell. “They know: when you’re on Stampeder turf, there’s a problem.

“As a team, you want to build that identity, you want to develop that swagger, definitely.

“As of late, the last couple of years, our fans have really started to get into the games, knowing when to get loud and when to get quiet for our offence. And I know it might sound cliché but I really do think altitude plays a factor.

“This is where we practice every single day. This is what we’re used to. Guys coming in get tired here faster than normal, which is why Ottawa flew out a day earlier than usual. And I think you’ll see more and more teams follow suit on that.

“We seem to get stronger as games go on, in third and fourth quarters, and we’ve been able to mount some comebacks.

“We’re well-disciplined at home, too, and our fans do a good job yelling for us.

“And there’s just a belief. I don’t know what it is, exactly why it is, but guys just seem to play faster, smarter, more opportunistically.

“We’re tough to beat here.”

Bo Levi Mitchell. (Photo by David Moll)

And how.

Including post-season fixtures, the Stamps’ success rate on Crowchild Trail North has been nothing short of staggering: 18 wins in the most recent 19 games and 25 of 27.

That’s what’s known as flexing the hometown pecs.

“A philosophy of most CFL teams, if not all, is if you win your home games you’re going to have a good season,’’ says Dickenson.

“Doesn’t happen often that you win ’em all, like last year. But that one’s in the history books and we’re moving on.

“We want to start it out right, though, going up against a great opponent.

“I’d like to think we can use our fans and our home opener to get a little edge. I thought they had a great crowd last week. We’re certainly looking to have our (fans) show up … it’s Thursday night, the kids are out of school, so let’s make it loud.”

The 2017 McMahon opener kicks off at 7 p.m., as the locals go in search of a first win following that topsy-turvy, unsatisfying 31-31 OT tie in Ottawa last week.

“Our fans are loud,’’ praises slotback Marquay McDaniel. “Honestly, I think that’s our big advantage here. People don’t realize how much difference that makes, when (the opposition) is on offence, trying to hear signals, the noise.

“They’re a big part of our success.”

Marquay McDaniel. (Photo by David Moll)

Adding a bit of context, the Stampeder franchise record for consecutive regular-season home Ws sits at a whooping 25 and dates all the way back to the days of Les Lear, Woody Strode, Keith Spaith and Normie Kwong, and a crossover between the golden 1948 and ’49 campaigns.

“Ohhhh,’’ whistles Mitchell, eyebrows arched, teasingly, “we’ve got a long way to go then.”

Indeed.

But Wall, while mightily impressed at the tally, won’t write anything off as impossible. Waving white flags isn’t in the mental make-up of this group, especially not within the Fort Knox-like security of their house.

“That,’’ he muses, “is a high number. A HIGH number. But thing is, it’s been done once before. So there’s no reason it couldn’t happen again … Not this year, of course, but it can continue to happen.

“The way we approach it is this: We just want to keep this going as long as we can. Right now, we’re just focused on the next one, and we know it’s a tough one.

“Let’s take it one at a time and see where that takes us.”