Courtesy Calgary Herald:

As dress rehearsals go, the Calgary Stampeders probably couldn’t have asked for a better one.

Because Thursday night’s 39-35 loss to the B.C. Lions was a mild reminder there’s still some work to do over the next six days before the same teams meet again Thursday night at McMahon Stadium in their Canadian Football League season opener.

After piling up an easy win over an outmanned Edmonton Eskimos team a week ago, the Stamps finish the pre-season with a 1-1 record and the knowledge there’s room for improvement.

That was made clear in an ugly second quarter in front of 26,242 fans when the Lions outscored Calgary 21-7, erasing what had been a 10-1 Stampeder lead.

To be fair, the Stampeders were not showing all their cards. Middle linebacker Saleem Rasheed, the former NFLer, dressed but did not see action and cornerback Brandon Browner played only sparingly — two men who entered the game as the only ironclad starters going into the regular season. Linebacker Shannon James also saw little action.

And Calgary stuck to a basic defensive scheme, with no blitzes and almost all man-to-man coverage, preferring to save any variations for the season opener.

But there was no excuse for an only so-so performance from the Stamps’ defensive line — tackle Eddie Freeman was repeatedly berated by position coach Cornell Brown — and the secondary struggled to keep up with B.C.’s talented receivers; Calvin Bannister, in particular, was burned on a pair of Buck Pierce touchdown tosses, to Geroy Simon and Paris Jackson, respectively.

On the bright side, Calgary’s offence had some nice moments.

“I saw some guys who knew it was their opportunity to make a play, and they made it,” said Stampeders coach John Hufnagel, who’ll start wielding the axe today to get down to the 53-man roster limit by Saturday at 1 p.m. MDT. “(Receiver) Eddie Montgomery made some nice plays, (running back) Demetris Summers had a nice run and a nice kickoff return. (Receiver) Chris Jackson did awfully well, (receiver) Reggie Williams made a nice play at the end. A lot of good things happened out there; the guys were playing with some skill.”

After three straight two-and-outs to open the game, Henry Burris guided Calgary to back-to-back scores — a Sandro DeAngelis field goal, followed by a 10-yard touchdown pass to Joffrey Reynolds.

In the third quarter, Ben Sankey did himself a favour in the fight for the No. 3 spot on the quarterback depth chart, marching the Stamps on a 70-yard touchdown drive, completing all three of his passes, including the four-yard touchdown strike to Jeremaine Copeland.

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