Fan convinced 'miracle,' good-luck charm will help Elks snap record CFL home losing skid
CTV
Edmonton Elks fan Guy Desrosiers believes a banner he created as a teenager in 1971 helped spur the CFL team into its 'dynasty' era filled with Grey Cup victories. He also believes twin 12-11 scores – one from '71 and another from last week's Elks defeat – is a sign a new dynasty will begin for the currently winless team.
Do you believe in miracles?
Guy Desrosiers does, and he believes history will repeat itself Thursday night at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium as the city’s football team tries to exorcise a devil of a losing skid.
The city resident has dug up a good luck charm of sorts to unleash when the winless Edmonton Elks taste certain victory, he says.
The last time the Elks (0-5) won a home game, the COVID-19 virus was a mere glimmer in a scientist’s eye. Now the Canadian Football League franchise faces extending its record 19-game losing skid on home turf to 20 Thursday night when they host the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
The game represents the Elks' best chance to snap the unfortunate slump that dates back to October 2021. Heading into the 7 p.m. contest, the Ticats sit in the basement of the CFL’s East Division with a record of 1-3. Hamilton is without its top quarterback, Bo Levi Mitchell, who is injured and out of the lineup.
Beyond the prospect of perhaps defeating a fellow CFL bottom-feeder, though, the 66-year-old Desrosiers – a lifelong fan – believes the unusual result of the Elks’ previous game is a sign the team’s fortunes are about to change.
The 12-11 Saskatchewan Roughriders victory over the Elks was a score Desrosiers has seen just one time before: at Edmonton’s old Clarke Stadium on a rainy September 1971 night, when the team snapped an eight-game losing slide by beating the Montreal Alouettes.
