HAMILTON — A battle between the two top teams from the East Division gets underway this week in the nation’s capital when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Ottawa REDBLACKS hit the field at TD Place Stadium.

The game will mark the first of a back-to-back series that holds major implications on the division standings with both the Ticats and REDBLACKS sitting with an 8-7 record. Ottawa currently ranks ahead of the Tabbies for first place, but that all could change if the Ticats are able to continue their momentum gained over the course of the last few weeks.

Both the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts have been eliminated from the playoffs and simply are just playing for pride at this point, with just three weeks remaining in the regular season schedule. So whoever finishes in second place for the division will be welcoming the West Division’s crossover team.

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A Western team has never made it to the Grey Cup when playing through the East Division bracket, but they have made it to the Eastern Final with the most recent coming just last year when the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeated the REDBLACKS in the Eastern Semi-Final.

The first round bye has served the East well when the crossover has taken place, which simply adds incentive, as well as possibly some pressure, on both the Ticats and REDBLACKS to seal up top spot.

Entering the home-and-home series, either team’s offence is without question their Achilles heel. Both Jeremiah Masoli and Trevor Harris have gone through their struggles this season but have maintained two of the league’s top passers, ranking second and third in total yardage.

Hamilton also boasts a fairly similar receiving corps as Ottawa, having their own duo of Brandon Banks and Luke Tasker, along with emerging targets such as Mike Jones. The Tabbies also picked up Terrell Sinkfield last week and continue to work Marquay McDaniel. It’s a receiving corps that could cause some damage if they continue to hit their stride.

Ticats’ Jerry Glanville will be sure to have a game plan thoroughly planned out ahead of their meeting in Ottawa. No easy task for an offence that has the league’s leading rusher in William Powell and a receiving corps compiled of Brad Sinopoli, Diontae Spencer and Greg Ellingson.

“You’ve got to take something away, that’s for sure,” said Hamilton’s head coach June Jones.

William Powell will be one of the key weapons from the REDBLACKS offence the Ticats will be looking to shut down early.

“He’s a pretty good back. We respect him… a lot,” said defensive lineman Ted Laurent. “They’re going to try to establish the run and it’s going to be our job to stop it.”

The defence will enter the game with a certain level of ‘swagger’, as Laurent puts it, something that wasn’t quite as evident at the start of June Jones’ reign as head coach of the Tiger-Cats, let alone at the start of the season.

“The confidence is definitely high. We finally have our swagger back,” Laurent says. “The chemistry from Week 1 to now, you can tell that we have a lot more chemistry. We’re just building off each other, we’re just feeding off of each other. When one guy makes a play, the others get jealous and want to get there too. The ‘swagger’ is kind of a synonym to the confidence.”

It’s a new culture in The Hammer since Jones arrived, a coach that has emphasized the common knowledge of football being a team game.

“You win when you put ‘he’ before ‘me’,” Jones states.

And it’s something the Ticats have rallied around and have bought into.

Just how far their ‘swagger’ takes them is yet to be determined, but without question these few games against their last remaining Eastern foe will be a sure test to see just what this Hamilton Tiger-Cats team is made of, and whether or not they have what it takes to make it back to the big show for the first time since 2014.

Gametime is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. ET on Friday, the first tilt on tap for Week 19.

With files from Ticats.ca