The Okanagan Sun and Langley Rams have the longest standing play-off rivalry in the BCFC. It dates back to the 1990 provincial championship when the Rams were still based in Surrey and the conference was known as the British Columbia Junior Football Association.
When the Sun and Rams met on the final weekend of the regular season 2nd place and the right to host the Oct 16 semi-final game was on the line. The Sun’s 44-24 home win meant the game would be played at the Apple Bowl in Kelowna. Play-off games can mean a lot to the financial coffers of a junior football team as this is often the time where a break even or money losing season turns into the black. While the home gate may be a boon the Sun coffers, the effect on the final score is less black and white.
These teams have met in play-off games at the Apple Bowl 12 times with a Sun holding a 7-5 edge. In three of those games the Rams were a 4th place team travelling to play the 1st place Sun. Since generally there is a larger talent gap between a 1st and 4th place team, (no 4th place BCFC team has ever beaten the 1st place club) let’s take those games out of the equation. That would put the all-time series between two evenly matched clubs on Apple Bowl in the Rams favour.
History out of the way let’s look forward to next weekend. The opposing coaches will tell you home field means a lot, or very little.
Sun head coach Ben Macauley feels Sun home field advantage Sunday is as much about the way the Sun got to this position as anything.
“We lost those three games and we knew we were a much better team than we were playing like. We have a lot of talent on offence, our quarterbacks and receivers were in sync (in the 44-24 win).
“Things started clicking, once the defence isn’t on the field as much the I think we started to dominate the way we all knew we could. That’s a good team over there (Rams). They have a lot of playmakers so it was important for us to make plays offensively so we weren’t asking our defence to do too much. It was just a really good all-around effort.
“The players have their confidence back, if it ever left. I think that’s critical.”
So while the Sun head coach is understandably pleased that his club is in good form at a critical point of the season, is home field that big a concern when the visitors are travelling under 4 hours up the Coquihalla?
Macauley says absolutely;
“It’s a combination of things. We have really good fan support here so definitely the home crowd atmosphere is a positive. That and not having to have the players climb out of bed for an early bus trip, every little bit helps.
“We don’t have the distractions of a hotel, the Rams don’t in this case but they have a trip to take that we don’t. It’s not a major thing but ever little bit can make a difference.”
Rams head coach Khari Joseph agrees with Macauley’s assertion that home field will provide some advantage to the Sun. But while he pointed to the game day bus trip he added the natural grass surface the teams will play on as a potential benefit for the Sun.
“We have access to grass and turf for practice but we spend more time on the artificial turf because that’s what we and most of the teams play on.
“It depends a lot on the weather, if it’s raining it’s going to slow down the surface for sure. You don’t know until game day but we make sure our players have different cleats with them so they can adjust to whatever it’s like. Both teams play on the same surface game day but for sure we prefer the field turf.”
Regardless of either coach’s opinion it just might be in the Rams DNA to have success as a road team in the play-offs.
The Rams have won the last two play-offs at the Apple Bowl. They came out on top in the 2011 semi-final and the 2014 championship game.
More interesting to note, while the Rams have not finished in first place in the BCFC since 1994 they have three titles to their credit since then. In addition to the 2014 win in the Apple Bowl, they upset the VI Raiders in Nanaimo in the 2012 title game. In 2005 the Rams finished in third spot before defeating the Raiders in the semi-final in Nanaimo and the Sun in the championship at the Apple Bowl.
