Tiger-Cats Season Concludes After Tight East Final

The day after Blackout night, a thick white veil of snow blanketed the field where they will not meet again — and even then not all of them — until next spring.

So the Ticats, and their fans, now have to deal with winter a week earlier than they hoped and without the game which had drawn them together like a magnet for more than six roller-coaster months.

Although not as emotionally devastated as the locker room immediately after the Cats’ last-play loss to the Alouettes in Saturday’s East Final. There was still a sombre mood in the Ticats’ quarters at Hamilton Stadium Sunday, when the team reconvened one last time for some group social events, locker-room clean-out and exit interviews with the coaching staff.

They’ll begin dispersing Monday morning, while the front office has meetings to begin prioritising their own potential free agents — head coach Scott Milanovich said there were 29 of them, reflecting the modern CFL’s roster fluidity — before they turn toward analysing other teams’ free agents who might become available when their contracts expire at the end of the calendar year.

Saturday’s 19–16 loss on José Maltos Díaz’s 45-yard field goal as the game clock struck zero — and midnight in the Cinderella worst-to-first story of the 2025 Cats — which had appeared so close to becoming a win, sent the Alouettes into next Sunday’s Grey Cup against Saskatchewan for just the third time in Cup history.

Sunday at noon, head coach Scott Milanovich said he probably won’t be able to watch the game film for a few more days because it still stings.

“I think everybody is still feeling a little bit sick, I know I do,” Milanovich said.

But Milanovich is so analytical, so committed to his craft, you know he’ll soon be parsing the films repeatedly, looking for ways to improve and adding what he finds to his already-thick coaching skill set.

As so often happens in the biggest of games, there were a handful of moments which could have, or did, turn the game’s direction and as the dramatic ending would indicate, it could have gone either way.

It was playoff football: defence first and foremost, as the two teams didn’t have a touchdown between them in an opening half which ended with the Als up 6–3.

The Ticats never led, but had finally tied the score at 16–16 with Bo Levi Mitchell conducting one of his patented control drives that got the ball to the Montréal 22-yard line with two-and-a-half minutes to go. But an incomplete pass to Kenny Lawler near the goal line on a play that had worked well most of the game sailed too far for the All-CFL receiver and then the next pass, an eight-yard completion to Lawler, forced the Cats into the decision to trust a defence, which had played well all game, and go for the game-tying field goal rather than risk losing the ball at 3rd-and-3. A yard or two more on the completion and the Ticats likely go for it.

Als’ quarterback Davis Alexander, who hurt his hamstring badly enough that backup McLeod Bethel-Thompson was warming up, convinced head coach Jason Maas to send him in with 101 seconds left and the ball on the Als’ 37-yard line. After a first down, Alexander was forced into throwing into traffic where Ticat defensive back Reggie Stubblefield knocked it down. He felt he could have intercepted the ball but the reality is that all his body momentum was heading in the opposite direction and it would have been an extraordinary pick. On the next play Charleston Rambo took a pass over the middle and just got by a diving tackle attempt by Hamilton linebacker Devin Veresuk — who’d earlier had a critical sack — to put the Als in close enough that, two plays later, Maltos Díaz was kicking himself into Als’ folklore.

“Honestly it’s tough right now because as a player you just have so many aspirations, dreams of taking this organization to a place they haven’t been since 1999 and right now I really am heartbroken,” Stubblefield said after the game. “I’m sad, and a thousand different emotions but credit to Montréal: they made the plays when it mattered. It’s something we can learn from and hopefully our future will be better for that.

“I want to say thank you to the whole organization and to the fans for this year. It’s a game of inches. Sometimes it comes down to the final play, sometimes it comes down to a play that may have happened in the first quarter. Maybe sometimes it’s a penalty we shouldn’t have taken and sometimes, in my situation, it’s a dropped pick that you need toward the end.”

Lawler, one of the CFL’s great rise-to-the-occasion players the past seven years, led all receivers in targets (13), receptions (9) and yards (117). Most of that was with close coverage, sometimes with a defender or two hanging off him.

Mitchell said, “I told Kenny after the game, ‘Man, I think you’re the best guy I’ve ever played with.’”

And while every Cat player and coach was still sorting out his individual pain on Sunday, Lawler seemed to be the one carrying around the biggest burden. He wore it on his sleeve, his eyes as quick to well up Sunday in the media scrum as they had been Saturday night in the muted locker room.

He tried to pull the loss onto his shoulders which was out of step with reality: he was the go-to as he has been all season, one in which he and Mitchell were reminiscent of Danny McManus to Darren Flutie; Jeremiah Masoli to Speedy Banks; Mike Kerrigan to Earl Winfield; Bernie Faloney to Tommy Grant.

“I don’t point fingers, I look at myself, always,” he said Sunday. “I dropped one ball and had the opportunity to break up an interception. I believe if I do that…we win.

“Why I love this game is it teaches us life lessons. It teaches us how to get back up when you get knocked down. Sometimes in life you don’t get the results…it’s hard dealing with it. You just have to take the loss and learn from it. Just know where you could have done something extra.”

Lawler was one of the many players who right after the game praised Ted Goveia, the club’s GM who died in September after battling esophageal cancer since the late spring.

“This team was resilient, we had to fight through a lot,” Lawler said, tears appearing on his cheeks. “The guy who brought us all here passed away.”

Lawler said of Saturday’s close loss, “I just feel like it wasn’t enough. It’s never what they do, it’s what we don’t and I just wish I could have some plays back.

“The only thing I can think about is getting back to the grind so this doesn’t happen again…just figure out a way throughout this whole off-season. There’s a lot of things we can do to learn from this so that when we’re back in this situation — and I know we’ll be back in the East Final and hosting it — that we can capitalise and execute on all cylinders because there were just a couple of plays out there that made the difference.”

Among them were some first-half penalties from a team which led the league with the fewest flags against. They took five, for 81 yards while the Als had only one. Most costly were: combined unnecessary roughing and objectionable calls against offensive tackle Jordan Murray which totalled 25 yards as Hamilton was on a promising drive, but Mitchell got them into field goal range after that; and a 41-yard pass interference call against Quavian White, a last-second replacement for veteran wide-side halfback, cornerback Jonathan Moxey, who was unavailable to play. That penalty led to the first of Maltos Díaz’s four field goals.

The Hamilton offence found its wheels in the second half — scoring three times in four possessions — with Mitchell completing eight of eight attempts on a drive that resulted in Shemar Bridges’ touchdown reception. But it wasn’t quite enough.

“It seemed like everything was lining up for us to win the game and it just didn’t go our way,” said defensive tackle Julian Howsare, the East rep for the CFL’s Defensive Player of the Year Award.

“It’s just heart-breaking. It’s hard to put into words. This is what you work on and sacrifice so much for … to try to win the whole thing. When you have a good group like this, and you’re so close, it hurts even that much more. It felt like it was about to happen for us but we’ll just have to take it and use it for motivation to come back stronger.”

Offensive guard Liam Dobson, who was an integral part of an offensive line which ended the year with the CFL’s best Pro Football Focus rating, said “It came down to the last play. Two quality teams playing a tough game of football. They had the ball at the end and they were able to make a play and just walk off with a win. Credit to them, they played a good game but I feel we’re still a quality football team with tons of potential for next year.”

He’s one of the few Ticats offensive linemen who is under contract for next year, with a half-dozen or so facing free agency, but they’ve all expressed a desire to return to Hamilton.

The most critical free agent is Bo Levi Mitchell, who was stronger, healthier and smarter this year. He put together a second straight 5,000-yard season for the first time in his career, is riding the same brain-wave length as Milanovich and, for the most part, has learned exactly when and where to uncage the gunslinger that is his core asset and when not to.

He says he’ll talk over his future with his wife Madison and their daughters Ele and Lakelyn and will have meetings this week with Milanovich, football operations president Orlondo Steinauer and Ticats’ managing partner Scott Mitchell. He did not want to engage in contract talks while the season was ongoing.

“I think we have a mutual understanding of what we all want,” the quarterback said. “Obviously I’ve got to discuss it with my wife and girls. As a player I’ve always dreamed of going out on top and to be so close to it and fall short is tough.

“Taking off the pads last night, for some reason doesn’t feel like it will be the last time I take them off. I love the grind, love the study, the film.”

Howsare and Brandon Revenberg — for this corner’s money the best offensive lineman in the league the past four years — are among the other high-level players on the Cats’ pending free agent list.

With their 11-7 record, six-game winning streak in the summer, their ability to prevail over their every-moment-of-the-day concern for Ted Goveia, hosting their first Eastern Final in six years and coming so close to advancing to the Grey Cup, the Ticats had an excellent season.

They have still to figure out how to restore Hamilton Stadium to its status as an ominous place for visiting teams; they had a franchise-tying 6-3 road record but the East Final loss squared their home record at a pedestrian 5-5, with two losses (Labour Day) on the final play of the game.

But the community took warmly to them because they played to the final whistle and were such a likeable and resilient bunch.

Milanovich feels that the way the organization, stadium staff and fans treat the team has fostered a positive atmosphere and that could give the Cats a head start in signing the free agents they prioritise. The word gets around the league too.

“This team went through a lot,” he said. “I’ve never been with a team as a head coach or assistant coach where there were less problems. You get that many men together, type A’s together, there’s usually going to be some problems but it was just great to work with this group. I’m proud of them.”

CATS CLAUSES: Bo Levi Mitchell was 29-for-36 and 269 yards, one touchdown and one interception … Greg Bell carried 10 times for 66 yards, and caught four passes for another 26 … Kenny Lawler caught 9 of the 13 balls thrown his way for 117 yards … Kiondré Smith, Shemar Bridges and Jevoni Robinson each had four receptions … dependable Marc Liegghio was 3-for-3 in field goals … Braxton Hill led the Ticats with 12 defensive tackles … Reggie Stubblefield, Destin Talbert and Quavian White had pass knockdowns and Talbert, who had a brilliant season, teamed on an over-under coverage with Jamal Peters for a huge interception which kept the Ticats in the game … Montréal QB Davis Alexander moved to 13-0 as a CFL starter, going 19-for-26 and 210 yards with one TD and one interception … Alexander rushed seven times for 64 critical yards, while Stevie Scott III had 9 carries for 48 yards and change-of-pace back Travis Theis had 18 yards rushing, but caught all four passes thrown to him for 52 yards … Tyler Snead had the Als’ TD, wide-open for 28 yards for one of his three receptions … Charleston Rambo’s 19-yard reception to set up the winning field goal was the centrepiece of his 34 yards … the Ticats didn’t have a penalty in the second half … the Als had 340 yards in net offence, the Cats 338 … attendance was 25,399 on an afternoon packed with tributes to Remembrance Day, and former Ticat stars like Mike Filer, Simoni Lawrence, Luke Tasker, Chris Van Zeyl and Speedy Banks.