B.C. Lions: Buck Pierce returns to Winnipeg for first time as visiting coach
Leave it to his old Winnipeg Blue Bomber buddy Doug Brown to have a little fun with Buck Pierce's first trip back to town as head coach of the B.C. Lions.
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Winnipeg (0-0), who had the Week I bye, open their CFL regular season Thursday (5:30 p.m.) at home against B.C. (1-0). The Lions are coming off an impressive 31-14 win over the Edmonton Elks on Saturday at B.C. Place in Pierce's debut at the helm.
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A former Lions quarterback, Pierce signed on as bench boss with B.C. in the off-season after a decade as a Winnipeg assistant coach, including the past four years as their offensive coordinator.
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Brown, the longtime Bomber star defensive lineman turned radio analyst, maintains that it won't be odd to see Pierce on the visiting sideline at Princess Auto Stadium, because his CFL playing career began in B.C. and therefore 'it makes sense that his head-coaching would start there too.'
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Then Brown took a little playful poke at the matter. He can be excused. There's a connection there. He and Pierce were teammates for Brown's final two years with Winnipeg. Brown has covered the team ever since. Pierce, as it happens, met his wife Lori at a barbecue that Brown was hosting.
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'No matter where Buck is coaching, he's a Winnipeg guy now, and he knows it,' Brown, 50, quipped.
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For his part, Pierce did his best this week to play down the whole thing, to try to keep it from taking up all the attention.
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'It's the next game on the schedule for us,' Pierce, 43, said. 'Winnipeg is a good football team. We have to execute and we've got to play smart. We've got to focus. We've got to do the things that relate to winning.
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'For me, that's my past. I enjoyed my time there. I'm excited to walk back into that building with the players we have in our locker-room.'
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This wasn't a messy split. It's nothing like that. Mike O'Shea is firmly entrenched as Winnipeg's coach and at 54 years of age it would seem he's got lots of runway left to keep going. Coming to B.C. was an opportunity Pierce wasn't about to get in Winnipeg.
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That said, there's clearly a great many ties there for Pierce. Pierce's first start with the Lions even came in Winnipeg, with him pinch-hitting for an injured Dave Dickenson in a 32-5 win over the Bombers on Aug. 10, 2006.
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Pierce played with B.C. from 2005 to 2009, went to Winnipeg in 2010, and was there until midway through the 2013 campaign, when he was traded back to B.C. That wound up his final year as a player.
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