What shouldn't be overlooked when the winner of the Annis Stukus Trophy as the top coach is announced at a luncheon here today is one other key characteristic all three finalists have in common -- they all had instant success in their very first crack at being a CFL head coach. And in a league that was for years notorious for recycling the same old faces and the same old ideas, the fact that three CFL head-coaching rookies would have so much success is not just refreshing, it's downright astonishing.

"Everybody's watching what we're doing (in Winnipeg) and some are gasping and some are excited," [Mike Kelly] said. "But what we're doing is just another way of operating that some people haven't been exposed to before. That's all it is. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I'm going with things I've taken from other places and other coaches that I thought were good, and we'll see if we can get them incorporated here.