Avoiding a Cup catastrophe

If the B.C. Lions prevail over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Sunday's 2011 Grey Cup at B.C. Place Stadium, Kelly Bates might be a little more careful handling the trophy than he was five years ago.

In 2006, in Winnipeg, when the Lions beat the Montreal Alouettes in the Cup, the burly offensive lineman broke it in half shortly after taking hold of it and caused a national incident that became the Canadian Football League's version of Humpty Dumpty.

"I broke the Cup, baby" Bates said with glee in the Lions' locker room. "It just snapped in half. What can you do?"

It took some emergency repair by some local handy men in Winnipeg later that evening to fix a metal bracket that had snapped off to put Lord Grey's mug back together again.

The following day it was back to its old self, although in reality there are actual two Cups, each made with an existing piece of the original Grey Cup. There is one that resides full-time in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, while the other is the travelling Cup.

Bates is in his first year as an assistant coach with the Lions, helping with the offensive line, although he was pressed into duty early in the season as a player due to some injuries.

"I've always told everybody if I ever won it again, I'd snap it in half and walk away again," said on Wednesday with a laugh. "I think the adrenalin rush you have after you win it, you don't know how to control yourself once you get your hands on it. I'm going to do my best this time not to break it, that's for sure."

Bates pointed out in defence that he was not the first player to break the Cup.

"After that happened, all these people came out of the woodwork to explain how they lost it, or how they broke it or how it got damaged but nobody saw it," he explained. "I might be the first guy to do it on national TV; that might be the distinction.

"I think one of my teammates said it best, if you know who I am and how revered the Grey Cup is to me and the Canadiana behind it, you understand that you probably picked the perfect guy to break it because of the respect I have for it and its history."

Bates dressed for four games for the Lions this year in emergency relief and estimated he collectively was on the field for 15-20 snaps. He laughed when asked if he will receive a player's share of the money that both the winning and runnerup teams receive for playing in the Cup.

"Not even close," he said. "Whoever did my contract wasn't very smart."

Because of his versatile role this year, Bates said he will take satisfaction in various forms if the Lions win.

"The fact my family and I made a conscious decision at the start of the year to get into coaching, knowing the sacrifices you make time wise and what you lose from your family and knowing our family supported me this whole season in our endeavour into this, I think that's where the satisfaction is going to come from," he said. "The timeless hours you put in as a coach, it's amazing compared to what you do as a player.

"The big difference between being a coach and player for me this year is that you do not feel the fatigue you do to your body when you're a player. When you're playing an 18-game season and with the war of attribution, when the 4½ hours are up (from practice times), that's short. Then when you lift weights on top of that, you just want to go home and rest. Now you're putting in a minimum 12-hour days as a coach and there isn't enough hours in the day, but you have that energy because your body isn't fatigued in that way."

That said, Bates will have more than enough energy on Sunday if the Lions win the Cup. He'll just have to hold the Cup this time like a baby in his arms.

Perry Lefko keeps you connected to all the news in the CFL on Sportsnet.ca.