Vancouver native and LSU alumnus Peter Dyakowski can take cold. How about Jeopardy?

REGINA—Although temperatures on Sunday are expected to be relatively mild during the Grey Cup (live chat here), Hamilton and Saskatchewan players will still have to deal with temperatures that could feel as low as -12 degrees Celsius with windchill and the cold could still be a factor in the game. That's nothing compared to some of the practices this week, though, where some Hamilton players even suffered frostbite from temperatures that dropped to -21 Celsius (-31 with windchill factored in). Interestingly enough, one of the Ticats who was most confident about his team's ability to deal with the cold was Canadian guard Peter Dyakowski, though. Dyakowski (an extremely intelligent guy who's been named Canada's Smartest Person and will be appearing on Jeopardy this spring) would seem like someone more used to warm temperatures, as he was born and raised in temperate Vancouver and played his college football in extremely-warm conditions at Louisiana State University. Dyakowski's been in the CFL with Hamilton almost since graduating in 2006 (he had a brief stint with the NFL's New Orleans Saints, but then came to Canada), though, and he said after practice Wednesday that his body's now used to the cold, not the Louisiana heat.

"That's so long ago now that I've really gotten used to the cold weather," Dyakowski said. "The last of the hot weather was purged from me in the East Final in Winnipeg in 2011 when we had -30 windchill."

Dyakowski said he doesn't miss the Louisiana temperatures.

"Nah, nah, I'm loving it in Hamilton," he said. "Hamilton gets plenty hot enough for me."

That doesn't make him completely immune to cold, though. In fact, at Wednesday's practice (-16 degrees Celsius, -28 with windchill), Dyakowski initially wore shorts instead of sweatpants, a decision he regretted.

"I don't like to wear my sweats over my knee braces, but usually in colder weather I'm okay, so I went out in my shorts with just the Icy Hot braces on my knees, figured I'd get it out," he said. "I was my loosest at the start of warmup, so after we had the first team period and the defence was up, I used my break to run inside and get my sweats."

He said Wednsday's temperatures were a little cold for him, but the expected ones for game day sounded great.

"It's a chilly one out there," Dyakowski said. "If it's up to zero on game day, that will be like a tropical vacation compared to this."

Dyakowski said even temperatures of -10 to -15 don't affect the players much, though.

"As long as we're dressed for it, it's ideally a non-factor. As long as you keep your hands warm on the sideline. It depends on your drives, you know, if we're out there for more than 10 minutes at a time it gets cold, but as long as you're keeping warm on the sideline you're fine. But again, that's at negative 10, negative 15. If we're at zero, we're fine. You know, like in Guelph two weeks ago. That was cold, but I wore an extra layer under my pads and I felt fine."

He said the rain and wind they endured in Guelph this year should help the Tiger-Cats handle any weather in the Grey Cup.

"I think that would be a good experience for us, especially the last one."

Conventional wisdom is that teams should rely on the ground game more when it gets cold, but Dyakowski said the Tiger-Cats feel they can still throw effectively in harsh conditions.

"That's what the book says, but I like to think we've got a pretty good passing game," he said. "We've got some tough receivers, we've got a tough quarterback, so I think we should be able to execute regardless of the weather even if it does end up diving down to negative 10."

Pants-forgetting situations aside, Dyakowski's Canada's Smartest Person award was well-deserved, especially considering that it helped to dispel some stereotypes about football players. He said he still embraces that, despite the occasional locker-room ribbing he gets about it.

"I still have fun with it," Dyakowski said. "They don't want to let that go. But people want to give you a hard time for worse things."

He said his upcoming Jeopardy appearance this spring might let him add to that reputation.

"I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and see if I can add to the titles."

It's the Grey Cup champion title Dyakowski is focused on winning now, though, and it's been a long wait. He's spent his whole CFL career with Hamilton, playing for them since 2007, but this is his first appearance in the CFL's title game, as the Tiger-Cats haven't made the championship since 1999. He said it's not sufficient just to get here, though.

"Well, it's cool to make it, but you know, that's not good enough. We've got to win it."