Music: {allcanada} ALOUETTES BEGIN QUEST FOR THREE-PEAT AGAINST LIONS ON TSN

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MONTREAL -- When the banner is raised in a pre-game ceremony for Montreal's second straight Grey Cup triumph, the Alouettes will be in their locker-room getting ready for their season-opener against the B.C. Lions.

Catch all the action on RONA Canada Day Kickoff on TSN, tonight at 7pm et/4pm pt. Also available on TSN Mobile TV.

Keeping the players away from the celebration of last year's victory is coach Marc Trestman's way of driving home his message that it is a whole new season, and what happened last year has no bearing on how his team will perform in 2011.

"There was a lot of discussion about how we could treat our fans right and let them experience the Cup and at the same time stay with our philosophy, which is that 2010 is dissolved and is behind us," Trestman said Wednesday. "So the team will be in the locker-room before the game and will have no idea basically that this is going on. They will not be part of it."

Instead, injured receiver Kerry Watkins and off-season retirees Mathieu Proulx and Paul Lambert will be on field with the Grey Cup while the team will be shut in so that they aren't "put in a position where there are overlapping seasons."

Trestman is big on team psychology and who can argue with a coach who has been to the championship game in each of his three seasons in Montreal, winning the last two?

The Alouettes begin their quest for a three-peat, which hasn't been in done in nearly three decades, when they face the Lions at Percival Molson Stadium on Thursday night.

The Lions will be looking to pick up on their 7-3 finish after a dreadful 1-7 start to the 2010 campaign against a team they beat 38-17 in Montreal last Sept. 3. The Alouettes are 12-3 in home openers since they rejoined the league in 1996 and haven't lost one since they fell 16-7 to Saskatchewan in 2007.

Lions coach Wally Buono, the all-time leader in CFL wins, saw nothing odd in Trestman's approach.

"You're the 2010 champion, not necessarily 2011. It's very understandable," said Buono. "You want to start anew and create a mindset for everyone so they understand that."

Not getting carried away with two straight Cups looks like a priority this season on a Montreal team that had a run of retirements of key veterans, including all-time CFL receiving leader Ben Cahoon.

Trestman also mixed up the locker-room seating chart at the team's training centre at Olympic Stadium. Previously, they sat in groups, with the offensive line together in one corner and the defensive backs in another and so on, but now they are scattered randomly after picking their names out of a hat. Veteran leaders were placed in key spots around the room, however, and 38-year-old quarterback Anthony Calvillo remains in his old stall.

"There's probably seven or eight guys that we positioned around the room for a lot of different reasons, and then the rest are pretty random," said Trestman. "It's just an opportunity for guys to get to know other guys that they might not spend a lot of time with.

"When you walk through and see where people are it's kind of fun to see who the people they're going to be spending a bit more time with than a year ago."

Defensive lineman Anwar Stewart is one of the veterans with a new corner seat next to offensive tackle Josh Bourke. He had a laugh about the change.

"I like my spot because I get to fisheye everybody," he said. "Since I'm the old guy around here I get to make sure they're doing the right things.

"Except A.C. He's still in the same spot he's been for the 20 years or whatever he's been here. That's not right, that's not fair, but it's A.C. so we'll let it slide."

Calvillo begins what could be a special 18th season in which, if he stays healthy, he is almost certain to break Damon Allen's career records for passing yards.

With Cahoon gone and Watkins sidelined with a sinus problem, he will have S.J. Green in a new position at slotback and rangy newcomer Brandon London at wide receiver.

It will also be a first game as the starting tailback for Brandon Whitaker since Avon Cobourne left as a free agent for Hamilton.

"Maybe we need to be a bit more patient, but we have high standards here where we expect a lot out of guys," veteran guard Scott Flory said of the changes. "If we didn't have that level of expectation, then we'd be accepting failure and we don't want that around here.

"The new guys coming in here feel that. It's been that way since I got here in 1999."

The Alouettes will also have free agent Dwight Anderson starting at defensive back in place of the released DeAudra Dix and have a new kicker, former Lion Sean Whyte.

The Lions have even more adjusting to do in their passing game with only two experienced receivers, Geroy Simon and Paris Jackson, to go with Canadians Akeem Foster, Shawn Gore and Marco Iannuzzi as well as Dobson Collins and Nick Moore. Kamau Peterson, acquired from Edmonton, did not make the trip.

"Last year we struggled on offence at times and now we feel we have faster more athletic guys on the field," said Buono. "They still have to be able to run the routes and catch the ball, and we have athletes I believe can do that.

"And we have Geroy, Paris. Gore and Moore were with us last year. These are guys who have done this before."

The quarterbacking headache mostly involving Casey Printers that had much to do with last year's slow start is behind them and Travis Lulay is now in charge.

"It was tough being 1-7 with such high expectations at the start of the year but, to our credit, we stuck to the plan we were able to battle back and finish the season strong," said Lulay. "The thing is to carry that momentum into this season.

"We're confident coming in. Montreal's been the class of the league for the last couple of years. It's normally one of those games you circle on your schedule and we just happen to get them at the gate. It'll be a great test for our team, to find out where we are. But we also go in with some confidence that if we play well we can win."