Healthier family lets Calvillo focus on Grey Cup

A year ago, there were bigger things on Anthony Calvillo's mind than playing football.

The veteran quarterback had left the Montreal Alouettes near the end of the regular season after his wife Alexia Kontolemos was diagnosed with cancer, after having just given birth to their second child.

He was attending to more important things as first Jason Maas, then Marcus Brady took over at quarterback, finished off a dismal 8-10 season, and then saw the Alouettes lose in the CFL East Division semifinal to Winnipeg.

But what a difference a year makes.

With his wife's cancer being driven toward remission, Calvillo has stormed back with one of the best seasons of his 15-year career and has the Alouettes in the Grey Cup game for the sixth time in nine years.

He has a chance to cap his comeback with a win before his home fans at Olympic Stadium when the Alouettes face the Calgary Stampeders on Sunday.

As he left the field after Montreal's 36-26 win over Edmonton in the East Division final last Saturday, a decidedly healthy-looking Kontolemos and their two daughters, three-year-old Athena and one-year-old Olivia, were there to join the celebration.

"The main objective was for her to get healthy and the second was for me to get back on the football field, so we envisioned many things this year," Calvillo said Tuesday. "Getting back on the field and being in this position again to earn a championship, and to have her by my side, was that much more special.

"In the past, they've never really got onto the field that quickly. I'm always caught up in the moment of enjoying it with my teammates, but the organization made a special effort to get our families down there."

'It is still nerve-wracking'

Calvillo said his wife is not completely out of danger, but she has improved to the point where they are confident of beating the disease.

She has finished her chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and now goes every two months for blood tests.

"She'll do one more PET scan in January, to make sure that everything is gone from her system and, at that point, then they'll say she is in remission," he added. "But we feel she is in remission based on the blood test that she got a couple of weeks ago.

"It is still nerve-wracking when she goes for blood tests because the blood work is not going to lie. It's always going to indicate if there's something there. But right now, she's doing great."

Kontolemos was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma, a non-Hodgkins cancer of the lymph nodes, which has a 50 to 60 per cent cure rate.

The treatments went well from the start, so Calvillo was able to return for training camp in the spring with a clear mind and a new determination to win.

The 36-year-old has flourished under rookie head coach Marc Trestman's unpredictable offence and likely would have led the league in passing yards had he not been rested for the final regular season game after Montreal had already locked up top spot in the East.

'He is the best in the business'

Calvillo completed a league-high 472 passes for 5,633 yards and a league-best 43 touchdowns as Montreal scored a team-record 610 points in 18 games.

That put him in contention for a second Outstanding Player award, and he will be up against Calgary quarterback Henry Burris when awards are handed out on Thursday.

Calvillo, a Los Angeles native who broke into the CFL with the defunct Las Vegas Posse in 1994, set a single-game record with 44 completions against Hamilton on Oct. 4.

He is now second only to Damon Allen, who played 23 seasons before retiring after last season, in completions and passing yards and is only six short of Ron Lancaster for second place in TD passes.

"He is the best in the business," said Calvillo's favourite target, slotback Ben Cahoon.

Now the question is whether Sunday's Grey Cup game will be his last.

'This potentially can be my last game'

Calvillo's contract is up at the end of the season, but it appears he is leaning toward staying on.

"Everything is going to be evaluated at the end of the season," he said. "Of course, my wife's health is No. 1, regarding whether I'm back next year or not.

"This potentially can be my last game, but I do feel very good and confident that I want to continue to play, but everything will be evaluated once the season is over. And winning or losing the Grey Cup is going to be part of that conversation on whether I'll return next year."

He did not say whether a win or a loss may trigger retirement, but added that "there's going to be a lot of emotions I'll have to deal with whether we win or lose."

That is because, while the Alouettes have done well to get into Grey Cup games in this decade, they have only one win in that span, a victory over the Eskimos in Edmonton in 2002. They lost Grey Cup games with Calvillo as the pivot in 2000, '03, '05 and '06.

Calvillo has come under heavy criticism after the losses, and it is often pointed out that even in 2002, he didn't have a great game, completing only 11 of 31 passes, although he was named the game's MVP.

"We all want to change the mindset of what we've done in Grey Cups and this is just another opportunity to do it," he said. "To be honest, how many are we going to have in the future?

"That's how I look at it now. When I talk about taking things to heart now, this might be my last opportunity and I want to correct the view of what has gone on in Grey Cup games."