Heading into last Sunday's Western Final at B.C. Place Stadium, where the Lions beat up the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-18 to advance to their ninth Grey Cup game, B.C. was 16-23 in 39 playoff games since they entered the league in 1954 for a CFL worst .410 winning percentage.

Then hard times would return again and the Lions didn't get back to the Grey Cup game until 1983, the rookie season for Don Matthews as a head coach in the CFL. B.C., with quarterback Roy Dewalt and wide receiver Mervyn Fernandez, scored a league high 477 points that season and intercepted 42 passes, but fell to Toronto in the title tilt.

B.C. didn't get back to the CFL's title game until 1994 under the guidance of Dave Ritchie, who would eventually become the Blue Bombers' head coach. Ritchie had helped turn around a 3-15 squad in 1992 into a 10-8 outfit in 1993. In 1994, the year the CFL expanded into the U.S., the Lions beat the Baltimore Stallions 26-23 for their third Grey Cup.