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It was a Commonwealth Stadium shrouded in fog when the game began last night, almost reminding one of the 1973 Western Final next door at old Clarke Stadium which inspired one of the greatest newspaper headlines in Edmonton sports history.
The fog that day was so soupy the people who populate the press box had go down to walk the sidelines like they were covering a high school football game. And the Eskimos, who hadn't been in a Grey Cup since 1960, defeated the Saskatchewan Roughriders that day to get back to the Canadian classic.
"Out Of The Fog A Vision Of Grey" was the headline the next day.
So maybe the headline today should be "Out Of The Fog A Vision of Porcelain."
When this fog cleared by kickoff, it was the Toilet Bowl featuring the two teams not currently in possession of a playoff position, the three-win-easily-confused-for-a-high-school-football-team Toronto Argo-nots and the six-loss-in-their-previous-eight-games Edmonton Eskimos.
When the fog cleared it was not a pretty picture. It was a depressing scene as only about 12,000 of the announced crowd of 30,012 --or 40,000 fewer than watched the Eskimos against the Saskatchewan Roughriders here a month earlier -- sat cold and soggy in the stands.
It was "Unused Ticket Night" but this added a whole new twist to the promotion.
In the end, at least, the Eskimos proved that they haven't sunk to the depths of the double blue, the only team in the league they didn't manage to lose at least once to this season.
But to suddenly figure that out of this fog there might be another vision of Grey was a little hard to imagine no matter how hard you squinted last night as the Eskimos scored a 36-10 win over he ArrrrrrG-oooooooos.
The Eskimos have been down so long in the second half of this season this looked like up to them.
"It was a great win," said coach Richie Hall. "It was nice to win one in a convincing manner."
There was that about it.
Sort of.
While the win was by the largest margin of any win the Eskimos recorded this season -- the other seven were won by a combined 32 points -- it was somewhat surprising to go into their dressing-room and hear them selling it was some sort of statement game.
"It wasn't coming down to the last play of the game," said Hall.
Which was true. There was no danger of two defensive backs running into each other and allowing Geroy Simon a free Hail Mary touchdown in the last minute for the win.
"It was important how we played. We haven't been able to finish off football games. It was important to come out at home and win this game and give us some confidence going to B.C. next week.
"No matter what the situation, the mission next week is to go to B.C. and play well"
Oh, a Hamilton loss today and a Winnipeg loss tomorrow and the Eskimos will be guaranteed of no worse than a second straight trip to the Eastern Semifinal under the cross-over rule.
Or a B.C. loss this weekend and an Eskimo win over the Lions in Vancouver next Friday would combine to put Edmonton in the West Semifinal and prevent matching the longest run out of the West playoffs since missing in 1962, '63, '64 and '65.
"We're building up momentum and confidence up in ourselves," said middle linebacker Maurice Lloyd of a defence which had three interceptions and a fumble recovery against the fumbling, bumbling leaders of the league in give-aways with even more than Edmonton.
"We did some good things out there," said quarterback Ricky Ray who had a 22 for 34 night for 332 yards passing as part of 456 yards of net offence but still only managed one touchdown pass.
"It was important to get a lead and play in front for a bit. It was nice to have some big plays. The offensive line did a good job today," added the guy who came out of the game with a clean uniform. "But it will be a tougher test next week."
I doubt if the fans are drinking the Kool-Aid. But it ain't over 'til it's over, it's how you leave 'em, etc., etc.
One thing for sure is that the Eskimos are leaving Comonwealth Stadium now.
The next time they run out of their dressing-room, it will be a new state of the art NFL calibre set-up complete with two floors of office space and a field house.
The rest of their season is on the road, whether it's one week or two or three or ... nah.
TERRY.JONES@SUNMEDIA.CA