It's not easy to get up off the canvas when you've been decked twice like that.
When you've just stunk the joint out in the game Henry Burris calls "the regular season Grey Cup" and then came back home before 46,212, the largest crowd of the season in the CFL, and you gassed a game you led by 14 points late, it's not easy getting back at it again.
"Because of what happened there's a mourning time," said Eskimos' rookie head coach Richie Hall.
"I think our players mourned on our three days off.
'OUT OF YOUR MIND'
"Eventually you have to put it out of your mind, start pulling yourselves back together and going forward," he added.
"I'm just glad it's been a long week," said Dario Romero of nine days between games.
"That last one is one of those games that you have to forget and it's a game that is hard to forget," he added.
"It is tough," said Jason Goss. "If you dwell on it, it can cost you and make it a really tough rest of the season on you. We absolutely have to put it behind us."
Two weeks back you were in first place. Now you're alone in third knowing that even if you battle back to catch Calgary, they've got you in the season series and you'd have to beat them by 32 points in McMahon Stadium next month to change that.
"We know we played @#$!%^&+* in Calgary and played better back home but let it get away from us. We just have to go out and get a win, get back on track and go on a run down the stretch," says Calvin Armstrong.
At the same time the sportlight spotlight focus moved from the Eskimos with the double loss to the Edmonton Oilers with a fresh start on the ice in training camp, you have to battle back to reboot your own season to claim the seasonal sports pages back somewhat for yourselves.
"Those games meant a lot from a community standpoint," said John Comiskey of the rare pair of Labour Day doubleheader losses to the Stampeders which threw cold water on a town which hasn't hosted a CFL playoff game since 2004 and missed the last three years in the NHL.
"What's done is done. It can't be changed. It's not as if there's been a death in the family here. We lost two important games," said Comiskey.
You're lower than a snake's belly in a wagon wheel rut and all of a sudden it's time to catch a plane to Regina for the first of a back-to-back set of games against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, coming off back-to-back wins against Winnipeg and tied for first with Calgary.
'TAKES A WHILE'
"Sometimes it takes a while," said Kamau Peterson. "But in football you have to have a short memory. You have to forget the last play. And you have to put the last game behind you. If you spend too much time focusing on the past, the present leaves you.
"You can't hang on to bad things. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to see a completely different team in Regina."
That's it. says Maurice Lloyd.
"Short-term memory," said the former Saskatchewan Roughrider who will be going back to the only place other than Commonwealth Stadium where they've won this year.
The Roughriders will be dealing with a little longer-term memory, mind you, reflecting on how they gassed their first game here against the Eskimos when they were up 22-0 early.
It's not often the Riders lose one at home, especially in games when the visitors from the Evil Empire are in town.
"This game has been sold out for a long time in Regina. It's an environment where Edmonton hasn't had a lot of success and we're going to be going against a very confident group - more confident than we are," said Hall.
It seemed like it took from last Friday until now for the Eskimos to stop talking about the games they lost to Calgary and to focus forward to the games on deck with Saskatchewan which are now just as important in that long-since sold out stadium in Regina Sunday with more than 50,000 expected back here for the replay next Saturday.
But let's be honest here. The only way to put the double disaster behind you for good is to win.
Another double disaster and their season will be branded by it.
TERRY.JONES@SUNMEDIA.CA
