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This guy knows what it takes to win the Grey Cup

Mike Derks understands better than most people what it's like to play in a Grey Cup game. In 1986, Derks won the Grey Cup with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, after a disappointing loss in the championship game the year before.
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Mike Derks, now the head coach of Lasalle Secondary School's football team, sported one of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats jerseys he wore during his CFL career in the 1980s. Derks won the Grey Cup with Hamilton in 1986, and shared his thoughts on Sunday's game. Photo by Jonathan Migneault.
Mike Derks understands better than most people what it's like to play in a Grey Cup game.

In 1986, Derks won the Grey Cup with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, after a disappointing loss in the championship game the year before.

Today, he is head coach of Lasalle Secondary School's football team.

“Everyone will tell you, it is a hell of a lot more intense,” he said about the big game. “They used to say you've got a dial on the side of your helmet that when the regular season is over, you dial it up a notch.”

Twenty-eight years after putting on his Grey Cup ring for the first time, Derks has remained loyal to Hamilton.

He played five more seasons for the team after winning the championship, and ended his career a year later with the Edmonton Eskimos.

Derks said he is confident the Ti-Cats can repeat their glory days in Sunday's Grey Cup game against the Calgary Stampede.

As with his team in 1986, this year's squad made it to the final last year, but lost to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. They'll be facing the Stampede in Vancouver on Nov. 30.

Derks and his teammates lost to the BC Lions in Montreal in 1985, but defeated the favoured Eskimos the next year in Vancouver.

The last time the Tiger-Cats won the Grey Cup, in 1999, was also in Vancouver. Like Derks' team in the 1980s, they also lost in the final the previous year.
“I'm a superstitious guy and it looks like a lock to me,” Derks said.

But the Stampede are the favourites this year with a 16-3 record, next to the Tiger-Cats' 10-9 record.

In that regard, Derks also sees parallels to this career, because he and his teammates were not expected to beat the juggernaut Eskimos team in 1986.

“Calgary is a very impressive team and I think that plays right into the Tiger-Cats' favour,” he said. “When we won in 1986, we were clear underdogs.”

Even if superstition favours the Tiger-Cats, Derks said winning the Grey Cup will be no easy task.

“If you don't come out of there hurt and bruised, then you did something wrong,” he said.

Whichever team wins, the Grey Cup will not have any new names of players native to Sudbury inscribed at its base.

While Derks is part of a proud tradition of Sudburians who have played in the CFL – his Grey Cup-winning team also featured Sudbury native David Sauvé – there are no current CFL players from Sudbury.

But with a high school football league that improves every year, and a strong summer league, that could change one day.

“We have lots of kids that have some potential,” Derks said.

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Jonathan Migneault

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