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Asked whether he knew that Saturday is his 400th game as a head coach in the Canadian Football League, Wally Buono shrugs.

“No. I don’t remember most of them. But I remember Game No. 1.”

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His first was a 38-38 tie with the B.C. Lions on June 13, 1990, in Buono’s first season as head coach in Calgary. He won his next four in succession, building the foundation of a winning legacy that is without parallel in the CFL and superseded only by Don Shula and George Halas in the National Football League.

When he returned to the coaching ranks this season after a four-year hiatus with the Lions, Buono’s long line of victories stood at 254. That was 104 more than the rest of the league’s other eight coaches combined.

“It’s kind of good, but it’s also kind of sad,” Buono says. “It just shows you the turnover in our profession.”

After a 2-1 start to the 2016 season, the grey eminence is now at 256 victories, and all he cares about is win No. 257, Saturday in Regina against the Roughriders. While only the fourth game of an 18-game season, it represents a pivotal contest for the Lions, who can get an early jump on securing a possible tiebreaker against an 0-2 Roughriders team they face two more times this season. As well, a win for the Lions would restore a belief that the team is as special as Buono believes it can be.