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I see the Blue Bombers hastily moved their practice time Thursday, in an effort to avoid the really bad weather.
What are they going to do come October and November -- cancel it altogether?
Actually, you feel for some of the rookies from the States when the weather turns here. Someone flips a switch, and summer's over.
"I was really surprised," Alex Suber, a first-year defensive back from Florida, was saying. "Definitely not what I'm used to."
Never mind.
In another month, Suber and Co. might be scraping frost off the ball. Or off their bicycles.
"All I've got is a bike," linebacker Marcellus Bowman offered. "So I might have to think of another mode of transportation."
Bowman's from Ohio, so for him this isn't a shock, yet.
For kick returner and Texas native Deon Beasley, it is.
"You're never hot out here, you're always cold," Beasley said. "It's about to be very cold.
"I already told my mom I'm packing up all my shoes and sending them home. I need to get some boots. And I guess I better get me a chick. With a car."
Yeah, the long sleeves are out.
Now it's time to start rolling them up.
Because the competition's about to get ramped up, too. Every hit, a little harder. Every straight arm, a little stiffer. Every contact with the ground, a little more painful.
Everybody knows the Labour Day Weekend is the (ital) real (ital) start of the CFL season.
It's when the breeze takes on a bite, the air starts to smell like leather -- and teams from Winnipeg go to Regina to die.
At 2-6, the Bombers aren't dead, but they're reeling.
A game against the Riders on the first Sunday in September, at that crazy place they call Taylor Field, isn't exactly an elixir for the ailing.
The cold, hard truth: for five straight years, Winnipeg teams have been humbled there, by an average of nearly 16 points a game.
If the season's first eight games have been a series of body blows to this team's psyche, the next two have the potential to be the right hook to the jaw that sends the thing to the canvas. Or, at least, starts the little birdies circling.
The new Bombers may not know what they're in store for, but they sense things are changing. Urgency is up. Room for error, way down.
"I can feel the tension in anticipation of these next two games," Bowman said. "I'm going to prepare myself for the worst, and see what happens."
Just like the weather. Bundle up, pull on an extra layer -- and may the toughest team win.
Because from now on, it's not about pretty passes or one-handed grabs under a hot summer sun. When the temperature drops, the will can't.
If there's any quit in the Bombers, it'll put its skinny, shivering arm up before too long.
"I'm looking forward to it," Beasley said. "It's something I've never experienced before. It's still football, either way you put it. There's still going to be a winner, there's still going to be a loser. It's mind over matter."
It's funny, but the way the rookies tell it, they've been warned about the weather like it's some big creature coming in from the north.
"They've been trying to scare me, with what they've been telling me about it," Suber said.
And what have they said?
"It's ridiculous. Nothing can prepare me for it."
Not even a little taste of winter at Middle Tennessee State.
"It snowed a little bit there," Suber said. "But not what they've been telling me. Nothing below. I've never been in below before."
As in, below zero.
There's only one thing worse than being "in below" in Winnipeg.
Being in last place at the same time.
The good news: every win from here on in is worth a few degrees.
It's time to flip the switch, fellas.