Originally, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were scheduled to play the Calgary Stampeders on Friday, July 11. However, due to the wildfire smoke contributing to poor air quality, the game was postponed to the following day.
"Both teams had to deal with it, so for me it's not an excuse," Riders' defensive lineman Micah Johnson told Dave Thomas. "If I'm being honest, I feel like Calgary had it tougher because they were on the road and we were at home."
Both teams eventually played on Saturday, July 12 with the Stamps winning 24-10.
"I was up here five hours before the game, guys were at the stadium for eight, nine hours," Johnson recalled. "I don't think guys rehydrated properly. I think our energy was so high, we were so amped for that first game on Friday, we knew the stands were filled. You can't deny it after they postponed it, I think our energy dropped terribly. Calgary kept their energy, they came out and won."
Johnson gave Rider Nation their flowers for their resilience during the entire ordeal that occurred.
"They sat out here for hours. The fact that they gave it a delay of more than two hours speaks to the testament of the fans. For us, all hats off to them," Johnson said. "I think that we couldn't come out and do it for them that Friday and really take advantage of that home-field advantage that we know we have when this place sells."
The six-foot-one, 255-pound defensive linemen finished the game against the Stampeders with one defensive tackle. This season, the 37-year-old has played five games for the Green and White, he has accumulated five defensive tackles and one sack. Johnson believes there's no reason to press the panic button after losing to the Stampeders.
"My goodness, no. If you come into the season and say that after five games you'll be 4-1, most teams are going to take that. It speaks more to the expectations we have for ourselves and the expectations the fans have. We believe going 1-0 that we can go into every game and win,"Johnson explained.
"But for me, it's a good thing that sometimes things can happen throughout the season, you can continue to cover them up and they come to haunt you at the wrong time. But with a game like that, it came out so early, I think it's going to allow us to address a lot of issues that come to the forefront and be able to fix them. I think it's obvious you want to win every game, but there's definitely a lot of positives that can come with a game like that. Personally, I think that was probably one of the worst games we could play and it was still a winnable game."
Saskatchewan travels to B.C. to take on the Lions in Week 7 on Saturday. Teagan Witko, Justin Dunk and Wes Cates have the pre-game show at 2 p.m. Dave Thomas and Luc Mullinder have the game call at 5 p.m. You can hear everything on the 620 CKRM Co-operators Rider Broadcast Network.
