CFLCFLers define that 'magic moment'

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A split second connection where time stands still on the field. That's just one element of "the magic moment," says Edmonton Eskimos quarterback Ricky Ray. (Liam Richards/Canadian Press)

The perfect football moment. 

A ball hangs up there, gleaming under the summer lights, spinning in the tightest of spirals, dropping, seemingly ever so slowly, into the soft hands of a speeding receiver who is no more than half a step - a mere blink of an eye - in front of the defender.  

Six points. Lovely.

So much time is spent watching and thinking about the violence of the game, revelling in the big hits, the sacks and the collisions, that sometimes you can forget there's beauty here. 

Those who have the chance to experience that perfect moment, however, understand.

"It feels like it's easy," says Ricky Ray, the Edmonton quarterback who is having a slew of these perfect moments so far in a surprise 5-0 start. "It's like [the pass] just came out with no effort."

Kind of like that incredible shot in golf, the one you swear to the guys around the water cooler you really did hit.

"When you hit a bad shot in golf, it feels like you hit a brick," Ray says. "But a good shot, it feels like there was no effort involved in it."

Geroy Simon, future writer and current B.C. pass catcher, has his own explanation for how that perfect pass and catch moment is so special.

"It feels," he says, "like if you're watching a really good movie and they show the perfect scene where a guy and a girl are in a relationship and they haven't seen other for a while, and suddenly, everything slows down ... that's the feeling on the field."

Wow. From a football player. 

"For me, it's the night time [when it's best]," Simon says. "And you see [the ball] as clear as day, and you see the perfect spiraling, and the white lines around the ball.

"Even though you are moving as fast as you can possible go without losing control, everything just slows down."

Dave Stala, a good downtown Hamilton boy, might not put things quite the way Simon does, but the Tiger-Cats' receiver sure knows what the perfect moment feels like. He even remembers when he first felt it.

"When I was growing up, I didn't start playing football until I was 16," says Stala, who caught two balls for touchdowns in Week 5. "I had a friend, named Mike Carubba, and he had me playing touch football. He realized [then] how soft my hands were."

A perfect moment, then, can also happen on the street, or in the local park. It's something you've probably had yourself, once or twice. 

Stala has had the chance to find that experience playing pitch and catch with Anthony Calvillo in Montreal, and then with Kevin Glenn in the Hammer, and in both cases he says the key to creating the moment is to be right on the same page with your quarterback.

Simon agrees.

"You can sense that with Fred and Ricky (Stamps and Ray), with Jamel and Anthony (Richardson and Calvillo). They make it look so easy, and you can appreciate the chemistry," he says. "Myself and Travis [Lulay] don't have the history, but you can tell that we worked together a lot."

Ahh, Fred Stamps and Ricky Ray.

They've been so hot this year they're almost as well known as that other Fred and Ricky (the ones with Ethel and Lucy as wives - ask your grandparents).

In Week 5 they found that perfect moment at the perfect time - less than three minutes to go and trailing the Argonauts. Ray hit Stamps, who was about half a step in front of the defender, for a 21-yard game winner that really went about 40 when you count the drop back and the end zone.

"On that play, I dropped back and I was looking at the free safety and just let my eyes go to Fred for only a split second," said Ray, who dropped his pass nicely into the out stretched hands of Stamps, as though the two were having a quiet Sunday afternoon game of touch in Giovanni Caboto Park.

Even the quarterback is amazed how it all works sometimes. And there's nothing better in the game for a pivot.

"Oh, for sure. Whenever you see a receiver running a good route, and you put it in there perfectly, that's the best part of football," Ray says. "You relate it again to golf. You can hit a lot of crappy shots, but that one perfect drive keeps you coming back." 

Simon says, despite the frenetic pace of football, there is always time to appreciate the perfect pass play.

"It's a moment when you appreciate all the hard work you [and the quarterback] have put in," he says. "Everything works the way it's supposed to."

So different, and so real. 

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