MONTREAL -- Even a 10-hour ordeal of buses, airports and airplanes could not take the smiles off the faces of the Montreal Alouettes as they arrived home Monday night with the Grey Cup.
Receiver Jamel Richardson, named player of the game as the Alouettes won a second straight Grey Cup with a 21-18 victory over Saskatchewan on Sunday night, held the Cup in the air and was greeted by whoops and cheers from about 200 red, white and blue-clad fans who trekked to Trudeau airport for the team's arrival from Edmonton.
"It gets more fun every time," said running back Avon Cobourne.
The team is to have a season-ending meeting on Tuesday at Olympic Stadium and then ride down Ste-Catherine Street through the heart of downtown in a victory parade on Wednesday.
It had not been a totally fun week for the team, which complained of substandard hotel accommodations in Edmonton and then endured a twice-delayed flight, with a stop in Toronto, before reaching home soil.
"The CFL is the CFL," said Cobourne, cradling the Cup like a baby as he spoke to reporters. "It's not one of those leagues where everything's going to be pretty.
"Not that we agree with it. We'd like to have a (direct) flight, but that's how the whole week has been. But they can't take this from us. They can put us in the worst accommodations and put us on the worst flights, but once they put anyone in front of us, they've got to take this from us and that's going to be tough."
The talk of the city had been quarterback Anthony Calvillo's post-game admission that he had a lesion on his thyroid gland that would need surgery, but he said that whether it is found to be cancerous or not, doctors have assured him he will be able to return to try for a third straight Cup next season.
Not that talk of three-peats is allowed on a team coached by Marc Trestman, who banned any mention of a repeat after last year's last-minute win over the same Roughriders, in which kicker Damon Duval got a second chance at a game-winning field goal only because the 'Riders had too many men on the field.
"The first one was the first but the second was so sweet because all year we've been hearing about how we got lucky last year, that we didn't deserve it," said safety Etienne Boulay. "We know we deserved it, but we had to prove that to the rest of the country and I think we did that."
"Marc talked about how we're not going to talk about repeat and back-to-back and at first I wasn't buying into that because that's what we were trying to do," said Calvillo. "But it definitely is not the same team.
"We have new guys who weren't here last year and now they're going to share this championship with us."
A year ago, the Alouettes went 15-3 in the regular season and were heavy favourites to win the Cup, but after an 12-6 season in 2010, it was a toss-up against an explosive Saskatchewan team. But Montreal controlled the ball, did not commit any turnovers and rode a strong defensive game to victory.
"We went in saying we weren't going to repeat, that the 2010 team had to do it on its own," said Trestman. "We found out early on that we were going to get every (opponent's) best shot every game. We passed the test and that's why we're here today."
Now he just has to convince rush end Anwar Stewart, who said of winning the Cup: "It's really cool. Let's do it again."
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