MONTREAL -- Two Grey Cups ago, when a case was made that Anthony Calvillo was statistically superior to Damon Allen in every category but rushing and longevity, an angry e-mail arrived, vehemently disagreeing.
The e-mail came from Allen's wife, Desiree.
Her argument then -- and probably now if asked -- was that you can't dismiss the four Grey Cups won by Allen in four tries when juxtaposed to the less than scintillating performances by Calvillo in Canadian football's most important game. In a quarterback's league and in a quarterback's game, that remains the one blemish on Calvillo's rather remarkable career.
He doesn't win the big one.
He gets you there.
But he doesn't finish the way Joe Montana finished, the way the improbable Allen found ways to always end up with the ring.
Tonight is a different kind of Quebec referendum: A Grey Cup referendum on Calvillo's career. He may not choose to look it that singularly. He never has been one of those look-at-me quarterbacks. He doesn't act the part. Never has. But as the only survivor those from parking lot practices with the Las Vegas Posse -- and no, he wasn't the one parking cars -- it's funny he ended up working for Larry Smith, then the commissioner in charge of the failed American expansion, now just a team president benefiting from it.
This is Calvillo's sixth Grey Cup appearance in the past nine years with the Montreal Alouettes. That is historical. That's something Russ Jackson or Doug Flutie or Ron Lancaster or Allen never managed. They didn't get to championship Sunday with any kind of frequency that is even close to what Calvillo has done.
But they all won more championships.
The breakdown on Calvillo is almost Jim Kelly-like, except Calvillo does have one ring. The Alouettes did beat the Edmonton Eskimos in Calvillo's second Grey Cup start in 2002 -- but the win had little to do with the quarterback. The team may have won in spite of him, after he completed 11 of 31 passes for 260 yards. Add an interception or two and those are Michael Bishop numbers.
And that was the Grey Cup Calvillo won. In the others, he has come up second best.
Part of this may well be an East-West thing. The Alouettes finished 11-7 in winning the East this CFL season. Of their 11 wins, three came against Hamitlon, three came against the pathetic Argos, two came against Winnipeg: The Als were 8-2 against the East, with a losing record against the West.
And this is Calvillo's sixth Grey Cup start and in only one of those games have the Als had a better record going in than their Western opponent.
As receiver Nik Lewis said the other day after Calvillo beat out Henry Burris for the Most Outstanding Player award, had Burris had two more games against the Argos, he might have thrown seven or eight more touchdown passes also.
Smiling Hank has his own cause to fight for today. Like Calvillo, he is impossible to dislike. But unlike Calvillo, he never has been on this stage before and his legacy won't be determined by whatever it is he does tonight. He hasn't started five Grey Cups. He hasn't finished first all these years and left something behind. Unlike Calvillo, Burris has been great and awful and rushed and immature all in a back-and-forth CFL career. Before this season under coach John Hufnagel and offensive coordinator George Cortez, he was just another guy with a big arm and a bigger smile.
The coaches roughed out the edges and everything about Burris seemed different this time around.
Calvillo also seemed different this year, mostly because little was expected of either him, his head coach or his team. He looked to be close to done a year ago: The Argos, when they had spectacular Rich Stubler defence working for them, had a way of making him look terribly ordinary.
But today is a new day, an opportunity to win his second Grey Cup. Quarterbacking in five Grey Cups is a spectacular achievement on its own. John Elway is the only man to start in five Super Bowls, although the road is longer and more entangled in the National Football League.
Elway lost his first three starts, won his final two, then retired.
No quarterback has started six championship games in a nine-year period in any pro league before this.
A win tonight gives Calvillo a 2-4 Grey Cup record. That he can live with. But nobody wants to be 1-and-5, not here, not now, not when it matters most.
