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CALGARY -- John Hufnagel is a former first-rate quarterback in the Canadian Football League who knows what it's like when a quarterback like Ricky Ray goes against a quarterback like Henry Burris.
"You know when you're playing against another great quarterback that they're out there with guns fully blazing and the other quarterback is in the same frame of mind," said the Calgary Stampeders generally quoteless coach.
"There are two gunslingers out there. They're both capable of winning the games by themselves," said Eskimos' rookie coach Richie Hall.
"It's like Bob Gibson vs. Tom Seaver," he said of two great pitchers from when he was a kid. "It's exciting. It's what the fans want to see."
Like goalies in hockey and pitchers in baseball they may try to tell you they're not really going against the other guy.
SELLING TICKETS
But it's a quarterback's league and the shootout between the two gunslingers is bringing people to the TV sets and selling tickets for the games.
And after the last game there's more focus than usual on the two pivots going into today's 44th renewal of the Labour Day Classic, a game which Burris earlier in the week called "the regular-season Grey Cup."
Ray says it's hard to deny it's a matchup.
"You have to understand who you are playing against is one of the best quarterbacks in the league," he says of Burris. "I mean, you are not playing against him. But you are.
"The best strategy is to keep him off the field and to do that, you need to keep our offence on the field. If Henry is having a big day, you're going to have to go out and put a lot of points on the board."
Last time out, Burris went 30 for 45 for 479 yards and Ray was 28 for 37 for 342 yards as the two teams put together 1,030 yards of total offence and produced the start-to-finish most entertaining regular- season game in several seasons, the Eskimos winning it on a Ray touchdown pass to Fred Stamps with three seconds to play.
You'd think there would be an itsy bitsy piece of Burris who might take some pride in the fact he played such a large part in producing such a classic game. But not so much.
"I was pissed off the entire bus ride back to Calgary at 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.," he said.
"This is our opportunity to make up for it."
Burris still has a burr under his saddle from getting tagged with the loss in the minds of many in last year's 37-16 Labour Day loss to the Eskimos here when he left the game after the first quarter with a turf toe injury.
'I WAS EMBARRASSED'
"Being on the sideline and not being out there for the team, I was embarrassed," said Burris, who was also steamed.
"The fact is, after the game nobody made the point that I wasn't in the game for three quarters. The last time I checked, I was a special part of this team and doing some good things in this league.
"Through all you've done, you should at least receive that level of respect where, if you're not in the game, there will be a difference. As compared to last year when people were saying 'You guys just got beat. What are you going to do next week? And I'm like 'Well, shoot, I wasn't in the game. I think that makes a difference.
"And I will be in this game.
"It really pissed me off and I voiced my opinion to the team after the game that you're going to see a much different Henry Burris (in the Labour Day replay and the remainder of the season) because people aren't showing me respect.
"And this team wasn't being shown respect," he said.
Maybe being 4-4 after winning the Grey Cup championship, they need to take the same approach into this one.
He said the Stampeders, who have lost three of their last four Labour Days to the Eskimos despite the Eskimos missing the playoffs for the first time in 34 yards in 2006 and then missing again in 2007, have to grab this game by the throat.
"We need to come and show people who we really are and start busting people in the mouth. We were able to do that last year.
"Yeah, we won a championship, but I'm still the same guy here playing the same way and doing whatever it takes to help my team be victorious. Who knows? I hope we don't have to deal with that scenario again," he said of going back to Edmonton for the Labour Day replay, winning and going 10-1 the rest of the way to win the Grey Cup.
TERRY.JONES@SUNMEDIA.CA