CFL Soundtrack: Can the Alouettes be champions, or will they bite the dust?

The regular season starts Thursday, so it's time to bring back our team-by-team music-themed previews with the CFL Soundtrack series. Going from East to West, here's a look at each of the CFL's nine teams and what musical acts they compare to. First off, the Montreal Alouettes, who have a few resemblances to Queen.

What do the Montreal Alouettes have in common with Queen? Well, the most direct comparison may be in the way both have tried to move on without a charismatic, famous and recognizable leader. Queen shot to meteoric heights in the 1970s and 1980s with frontman Freddie Mercury's creativity, vocal talent and on-stage presence playing a huge role, but following his death in 1991 and the retirement of bassist John Deacon in 1997, surviving members Brian May and Roger Taylor's tours with others (primarily Paul Rodgers and, more recently, Adam Lambert) as "Queen +" have seen mixed results. Similarly, while the Alouettes have found plenty of triumphs over their lifespan, the five-year run they went on from 2008-2012 under head coach Marc Trestman was perhaps the most remarkable, featuring a 59-31 regular season record, four East Final appearances, three Grey Cup appearances (with two wins), and the only back-to-back championships in the CFL since 1997. Trestman left for the NFL's Chicago Bears in 2013, though, and the team has struggled to replace him.

The Alouettes' first choice as a Trestman substitute was former NCAA coach and ESPN broadcaster Dan Hawkins last season, and while that started with some promising signs, it wound up being stone cold crazy. General manager Jim Popp fired Hawkins after just five games (and a 2-3 start) and took over himself, and although the team did manage to recover somewhat, finishing 8-10 and losing in the first round of the playoffs (not terrible, considering that star quarterback Anthony Calvillo left midseason with a concussion and never played again), they didn't produce any kind of magic. Queen's parting with Rodgers came after a much more successful run (they put on some impressive shows from late 2004-early 2009, and put out a studio album) and was much more amicable, but the heights they hit with him were still nowhere near what they accomplished with Mercury.

Montreal's current coaching situation is also interesting, as Popp reportedly wanted to stay on as GM and head coach, but owner Robert Wetenhall hired experienced CFL coach Tom Higgins instead. That first led to questions about if Popp would stay at all, but he did eventually elect to continue on as GM. Both have said all the right things about working with each other, and they seem willing to play the game, but who knows if they have one vision. It's an odd arrangement that might not run all that smoothly, and no one knows how things will go once the season gets underway. The team fired offensive coordinator Rick Worman before playing a preseason game, which doesn't necessarily suggest that all is well. Can Higgins find a way to fit in over the long term, or will this relationship implode?

Similar things could be said about the current Queen+Adam Lambert tour, which started with former American Idol runner-up Lambert performing with the group at the MTV Europe Music Awards in November 2011. One of their first big dates after that, headlining Sonisphere at Knebworth in July 2012 (the same location where Mercury gave his last concert with the band in 1986), was called off thanks to the cancellation of the festival. They did have several massive successes after that, including selling out Wembley on consecutive days and performing at the London Olympics, and they're touring together this summer, but who knows if it will last. As with Higgins and the Alouettes, there could be a clash of cultures too; Lambert comes in from a substantially more pop background, and while Queen's catalogue has long had pop elements and pop-heavy songs, they've also been known for more hard rock and prog rock elements. Will Lambert prove to be a good fit for Queen, or will the two go in different directions?

There are some other parallels here as well. Slotback Jamel Richardson was one of the biggest parts of the team's recent success, putting up over 1,000 receiving yards every season from 2008-2012, being named the Grey Cup MVP in 2010 and leading the league with 1,777 receiving yards in 2011, but he missed most of last year after tearing his left ACL and LCL in August, and the team elected to release him this past weekend. It's not quite the same circumstances as Deacon's departure from Queen, which was a retirement of his own choosing, but seeing the Alouettes without their star slotback is at least partly as odd as seeing Queen without their long-time bassist.

Plenty of intriguing players remain in Montreal, of course. Chief amongst them is the man who after Higgins might be most integral to the Alouettes' success this year, second-year quarterback Troy Smith. Smith, a former Heisman Trophy winner with Ohio State, broke the mould for rookie CFL quarterbacks last year, not only finding a way to beat out more experienced quarterbacks for a starting job after Calvillo went down (despite only joining the team midseason), but impressing once he got there. Smith will be under pressure to take his game to a new level if the Als want to be champions, though; the 52.6 per cent completion percentage he recorded in 2013 simply isn't good enough in real life or in fantasy.

Smith will have some help from talented running backs like Brandon Whitaker and Tyrone Sutton, who should take some of the pressure off of him. He also has an enviable collection of receivers to throw to even without Richardson, including S.J. Green, Brandon London, Duron Carter and Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, who may spend his days preaching the virtues of the crazy little thing called love, but has shown he still has a fierce competitive instinct on the field. Smith may get some help on the defensive side too; the Als' defence was tremendous last year, allowing the lowest yards per game in the league, and while they suffered some notable personnel losses in the offseason (including Canadian middle linebacker Shea Emry), they should still be strong this year. All of those pieces didn't add up to success in the preseason, though. Will that change now the regular season's here? Montreal's post-Calvillo future may look rather dystopian from a few angles, but the show must go on, and there's potential here. We'll see if Higgins, Smith and this team can put it together and take us to the Seven Seas of Rhye:

Prediction: 8-10, third in East, out of playoffs thanks to crossover from West.

(Side note: It's hilarious that there's a video game about Queen released just before the most recent CFL video game.)

Stay tuned to 55-Yard Line for more team previews and our league-wide preview chat on Thursday!