Good Ticats show up, down Alouettes

They've changed coaches, quarterbacks and many other personnel since last season, but the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are still the CFL's Jekyll and Hyde. The Tiger-Cats, the most spectacularly inconsistent squad in a league almost full of hit-and-miss teams, have had an incredibly up-and-down season, losing their first two games before winning three straight and then losing six of the next seven. In just the last three games, they were thumped by then-5-4 Toronto 45-31, demolished then-5-5 Edmonton 51-8 and then were pummeled 34-12 by then-2-9 Winnipeg. That makes it very difficult to predict what they'll do on any given night, but the good Tiger-Cats came to play Friday and beat the Montreal Alouettes 41-28 at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

Most of the Tiger-Cats' inconsistency can't be blamed on their offence. Yes, it's turned in some duds, including scoring just 12 points against the Blue Bombers last week, and quarterback Henry Burris has had "Good Hank" and "Bad Hank" days that serve as a microcosm of the team's up-and-down season. By and large, their offensive firepower hasn't been an issue, though, and they led the league with 30 points per game heading into this week. (Some of that comes from the superb special teams, but they were also first in passing touchdowns and third in total offensive yardage.) If the offence has been sparkling for most of this season, though, it was especially spectacular Friday. Everything they did worked, especially through the air; Burris completed a ludicrous 28 of his 32 passes (87.5 per cent) for 326 yards and five touchdowns with a single interception, and receivers Andy Fantuz, Bakari Grant, Dave Stala, Sam Giguere and Chris Williams all made some excellent plays. The ground game was incredibly effective too, though; Avon Cobourne ran 19 times for 111 yards (5.8 yards per carry). The Hamilton offence looked like a gaming veteran playing Madden on an easy setting, doing whatever they wanted and making it work spectacularly well.

It's the Hamilton defence that's been much more of an issue all season long, though, and it didn't necessarily inspire a ton of confidence Friday. Yes, the 28 points the Tiger-Cats conceded was slightly below the 30 they'd been averaging (worst in the league by far), and yes, seven of those came off a Chevon Walker fumble that gave the Alouettes an incredibly short field, but a defence that had conceded the most total yards, rushing yards and passing yards heading into this week didn't exactly completely redeem itself in this one. Hamilton made some impressive plays, and held Montreal QB Anthony Calvillo to 197 passing yards and two touchdowns with a 52.1 per cent completion rate. The defence also did reasonably well at stuffing the run, although Montreal abandoned it quite early on after falling so far behind. Still, for quite a while, it looked like this would develop into a shootout, and the Alouettes almost made it interesting with a late drive, touchdown and onside kick that only narrowly failed. The offence was picture-perfect Friday and the defence wasn't quite as ugly as usual, so that led to a big win for the Tiger-Cats that improves their season-long record to 5-8 and kept their playoff hopes firmly alive. Don't assume that everything's all right in Steeltown just yet, though. After all, it all depends on which version of this team answers the bell...