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REGINA – Gene Makowsky wasn't there in 1976.
“No. My mom and dad didn't take me to the game,” he said, adding that he supposes that was understandable considering he was a thumb-sucking, potty-training three-year-old toddler in Saskatoon at the time.
Eddie Davis was three. Jeremy O'Day was two. Chris Szarka was one. Joceylyn Frenette was two months old still being burped in Montreal.
They're the only players who were even alive in 1976, the last time the Saskatchewan Roughriders finished first and played host to the Western final.
Gainer The Gopher wasn't born until the following year.
The 2009 Riders have a remarkable 11 born-and-raised Saskatchewan products on the roster.
Makowsky, Chris Getzlaf, Jason Clermont, Stu Foord, Neal Hughes, Joel Lipinski, Jordan Rempel, Michael Stadnyk, Tamon George, Nick Hutchins and Dan Clark all have a very real understanding of what Sunday's game here against the Calgary Stampeders means to the province.
“A lot of things have happened in the last 33 years,” said Makowsky, who has been a Roughrider for 15 of them.
The Montreal Olympics were held in 1976.
The Toronto Blue Jays played their first year in major league baseball.
Darryl Sittler scored the winner for Canada over Czechoslovakia in the first Canada Cup.
The CN Tower was built in Toronto ...
In 19 of the 33 years the Riders missed the playoffs. And they went all that time without finishing first.
“That's tough to do in a four or five team division,” said Makowsky who was named a CFL all-star Wednesday.
“To finally finish first ...
“It's been a big thing on the 'To do' list.
“Finally making the playoffs for the first time since 1988 two years ago was definitely something special. It's hard to say which one is more special,” said the player invited to help raise the Roughriders flag on the legislature to celebrate the occasion.
Clermont, who spent the previous years of his CFL career as a B.C. Lion, is from Regina and returned to be a Rider just time time to be part of it all.
“I don't know that I was a part of the exact formula for it happening,” he laughed on a beautiful 10 degree day here Wednesday.
“It's obviously something very exciting for the people of Saskatchewan to bear the fruit of a long drought.”
It's hard to describe how big this game is to this province. Maybe the fact that the Regina Leader-Post is putting out a 32-page special section this week gives you a clue. Name a newspaper that's ever put out a 32-page section for a Western final?
Riders' CEO Jim Hopson probably has a better handle on what it means than anybody. He played for the Roughriders in the 23-13 win over the Edmonton Eskimos in that final 33 years ago.
“It seems like a lifetime ago. Sometimes it even seem surreal. Like it was another person.”
Hopson said the thing that makes this hosting such a big deal in the province is what it means from a big picture point of view.
“There have been so many firsts for us lately. The first time in 19 years hosting a playoff game. That was such a magical year with Kent Austin coaching and winning the Grey Cup.
“But I think finishing first is the same with people all over Saskatchewan as it is for me. It is emotional for me personally because we were in the playoffs two years ago and now we finished first. That's why it's a pretty big deal to us. It says we've become a pretty good team.
“We've kind of had an inferiority complex here for a lot of years. This was always next year country. So many people moved away to Alberta. I think fans came to feel that we shouldn't expect too much, that we should be happy having a team that could be competitive.
“We're the smallest city in the CFL and I think the feeling was that we should be happy just for the team to keep surviving and maybe get lucky and catch a little bit of magic to get into the playoffs and get hot at the right time.
“There's been a tremendous shift with the football team that goes hand in hand with the province. We're not a have- not province now. People are moving back to Saskatchewan. And there's a sense of can-do. We've been a benefactor of that and, I think, a part of that. That's what this really says.”
And that says a lot.