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Winnipeg Blue Bombers quarterback Drew Willy says Investors Group Field is the most hostile environment for a visiting team in the CFL.

“The closer you are to the players, the dynamic of the stadium and the passion of the fans equals three areas where fans can really affect a visiting team,” Willy said Friday after his club went through one final walk-through at IGF in advance of tonight’s must-win game against the B.C. Lions.

On the flip side, offensive lineman Glenn January said IGF also provides his team every imaginable advantage as the home team.

“There’s nothing missing,” January said Friday. “It’s all right here for us.”

With that as our preamble — a shiny new stadium that provides every advantage to the home team, while simultaneously maximizing the disadvantage for the visitor — we come to our question of the day:

How come the Bombers suck at home?

Regardless of what the Bombers do against the Lions tonight in what will be their final home game of the 2014 season, Winnipeg will for the second year in a row have a losing record at IGF.

Last year — the inaugural season for the new stadium — Winnipeg was a woeful 1-8. This year, they’re 3-5 at home heading into a game in which, fittingly enough, they could be eliminated from playoff contention.

So what gives? How come this new stadium that provides so much advantage to the home side and disadvantage to the visitor has not translated into more wins on the field?

On the surface, the most obvious answer is the Bombers haven’t been very good anywhere — home or away — during the first two years the club has called IGF home.

But dig a little deeper and that answer doesn’t explain why the Bombers haven’t been getting a home bounce. Because while the Bombers were awful in 2013, they still managed to win two games on the road, while winning just once at home.

And it’s a similar story in 2014, where the Bombers’ 3-5 home record is the same as their 3-5 away record. Just one other team in the CFL coming into this weekend had fewer wins at home in 2014 — the truly awful Ottawa Redblacks.

And even with Ottawa, you have to at least give them credit for winning more at home this year — twice — then they have on the road — zero. And one of those home wins for Ottawa came over the Bombers.

So how big a problem is Winnipeg’s inability to use its new $210-million stadium to its maximum advantage? Well, even head coach Mike O’Shea — who’s been loathe this season to publicly admit even the most obvious problems involving his team — admits this one is a big one.

“We haven’t taken advantage of it like we should have this year,” O’Shea said Friday. “And more than that, we haven’t given our fans what they truly deserve. Yeah, they certainly deserve more. And the players feel it too.

‘When we win and the crowd supports us like that, they are extremely loud — I’d say the loudest in the league for their size’

— Winnipeg head coach Mike O’Shea

“When we win and the crowd supports us like that, they are extremely loud — I’d say the loudest in the league for their size. And we have to do better. Now, you’re asking me to put my finger on why, and I don’t have a good answer for that. But that’s something to look at in the off-season — what changes to our routine makes that much of a difference?”

It’s revealing O’Shea would cite the Winnipeg crowds deserving better as among his first concerns. That’s because the Bombers business plan for paying for their pricey new stadium is built on the proposition this club can consistently draw crowds of 30,000-plus to games.

That wasn’t a problem in 2013, when even despite a historically bad season, the club averaged 30,637 fans per game thanks to a honeymoon with the new stadium. But attendance is down this year markedly — the Bombers have averaged 28,826 through their first eight home games.

And that’s not likely to improve tonight. Last week’s crowd at IGF for a 33-23 Bombers loss to the Calgary Stampeders was an all-time low for football at IGF — 22,320.

That was almost 4,000 fans fewer than the worst crowd in 2013 and tonight’s paid crowd is also going to be bleak. The Bombers said Friday 25,500 tickets have been sold to tonight’s game, but that number is believed to include some freebies in a week in which the club was known to have offered close to 1,000 free tickets to at least one Winnipeg elementary school.

What’s all the losing on the field at Investors Group Field going to mean to the bottom line off of it? The Bombers have been quiet on that issue, but CEO Wade Miller did say this week he remains confident the team is headed in the right direction.

“This is a building process. Would we like a different record? Yes, everybody would. It starts with the players, the coaches and the organization. But there’s steps along the way to build something and that’s what we’re doing.”

While he didn’t say it specifically, you know one of the steps in that building process Miller described is finding a way to win at home consistently.

For starters, it’s a rare championship team in any sport that does not enjoy a quantifiable advantage at home. Any designs Miller and company have of snapping a Grey Cup drought that will be in its 25th year in 2015 must begin with winning at IGF.

But given the hefty mortgage the Bombers have to pay, winning at home will also soon become a financial necessity, particularly if the kind of drop in attendance the club experienced from Year 1 to Year 2 at IGF continues into a third year.

At the end of the day, all the best laid business plans — not to mention hoarse fans — don’t mean a thing if the players don’t start performing better on that perfectly manicured state-of-the-art field.

“Our fans have been tremendous at home this year, they’ve done some good things,” said Willy. “But fans can only do so much to help a team. You can sometimes count on them for a five-yard penalty here or there, which can really affect a game.

“But at the same time, it’s always going to come down to the players executing.”

FYI: A win tonight would clinch a playoff spot for the Lions for the 18th year in a row, the second-longest playoff run in league history… Bombers QB Drew Willy and Lions receiver Earnest Jackson were college teammates at the University of Buffalo.

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“He just needed an opportunity and I told coach Khari Jones that Earnest Jackson would be a good player for them,” said Willy. “You can see it the way he runs. I was just proud of him and happy for him with the way he played against Ottawa (eight catches for 195 yards and a TD).

— with files from Ed Tait

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek

Paul Wiecek
Reporter (retired)

Paul Wiecek was born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End and delivered the Free Press -- 53 papers, Machray Avenue, between Main and Salter Streets -- long before he was first hired as a Free Press reporter in 1989.

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