Montreal's Troy Smith will be the starting quarterback in a CFL season-opener for the first time in his career Saturday in Calgary and will be hoping for some help from some big-name talent in a game that starts at 3 p.m.
Former NFL star Chad Johnson will begin the revival of his football career as an Alouettes receiver.
Tom Higgins returns as a CFL head coach with Montreal after six years working as the league's director of officiating.
His last coaching stint was with the Stampeders from 2005 to 2007 and Calgary's record in his final season was 7-10-1. It's serendipitous his first game back will be at McMahon.
"When you think about, why not?" Higgins said Friday. "I knew how to get here. The bus driver went the wrong way and I said 'no, no, you make a right here."'
The Stampeders topped the CFL with a 14-4 record last season, but were upset 35-13 at home in the West Division final by the eventual Grey Cup champion Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The Montreal Alouettes went 8-10 and lost 19-16 in the East semifinal to Hamilton. Star quarterback Anthony Calvillo missed the final 10 games of the season with a concussion and subsequently retired in the off-season.
Smith, a former Heisman Trophy winner with Ohio State, got a crash course in CFL football going 2-1 to conclude the season.
"What you do know about Troy is he brings a level of leadership, he has a very strong arm and hopefully he has a cast around him that he doesn't have to carry the football team," Higgins said.
"If we do our job properly, hopefully we can spread that football around enough that he doesn't always feel he has to be on top of his game for us to win."
Smith said that he recognizes the importance of the game.
"Every game, every play, every snap, every rep is concreting or cementing who you are," Smith said.
Chad Johnson wasn't among the handful of Alouettes available to the media at McMahon on Friday. Smith indicated Johnson is still adjusting to the Canadian game.
"Chad's OK, man he's done great," the quarterback said. "He's accepting the different nuances of the game and tried to perfect them the best he could, but his backbone and his foundation will be guys like S.J. Green, guys like Duron Carter and guys like Brandon Whitaker who can give him the ins and outs . . . on things he can do during the game if he's not feeling too up to par with what's going on.
"We have an incredible group of veteran guys who do nothing but help tremendously and I've relied on them also."
-With files from The Canadian Press
