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B.C. Lions general manager and head coach Wally Buono has been turned into a statesman this week, after the death of the CFL club's president and chief executive officer, Bob Ackles.

Buono has spent as much time grieving and answering questions about his friend — a CFL legend who died of a heart attack last Sunday — as he has preparing his team for tonight's game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

At one point this week, Buono talked about what Ackles stood for: "The only way to keep Bob alive is to keep alive what he valued."

Near the top of Ackles's list is professionalism, and the Lions could use every drop of it tonight at Canad Inns Stadium in Winnipeg.

After beginning the 2008 season with consecutive losses — one a no-show and the other by virtue of their own miscues — the Lions face a Blue Bombers team that is also a surprising 0-2.

"I think there is more focus this week," veteran offensive guard Kelly Bates said.

"With what has happened this week, this team has decided to come together and get business done. … We're not winning right now, and we need to turn that around.

"We lost three games last year. We're at 66 per cent of that already. Winning is bred by habit and so is losing. We need to turn it around now, and that makes this game more important."

Quite clearly, the Lions are playing the remainder of this season for Ackles, who was with the franchise when it made its debut in 1954. This was his 40th season with the club in a career that began with the lowly duties of water boy and ended in the corner office with the view. He also worked in the NFL and the old XFL.

"At the end of the day, if you want to give the Ackles family a gift or give them some sort of memorable thing in 2008, then let's win the first game and then let's go from there," Buono said. "You hope it could [pull the team together].

"The fact is, when you don't feel like coming to practice, or you don't feel like working a little harder, maybe by reminding yourself how short life is can give you that little bit of a jump."

Ackles's private funeral will be held tomorrow in Vancouver after the coaches and players return from Winnipeg, and a public memorial service will be held at the B.C. Place Stadium after a home game against the Bombers on July 18.

Yesterday, Buono cancelled a walk-through practice in Winnipeg, believing the players have been on such an emotional ride this week that they needed some private moments more than another workout.

The practice field was somewhat subdued this week for what is normally a jovial bunch, as emotion weighed heavy on every corner of the organization.

Unquestionably, Ackles's death has been a distraction and the magnitude of losing B.C.'s "Mr. Football" is not something that will dissipate in the course of a single week. Buono addressed the situation in an emotional team meeting on Monday and asked the players to do their utmost to honour Ackles's memory.

"As best you can, you have to be a professional," centre Angus Reid said. "There is this looming shadow of what went on here."

Much as Ackles has been credited for re-engaging the Lower Mainland with the Lions on his return six years ago, he also changed the culture within the organization. Under his leadership, no detail was too small, such as chipped paint, or too large, such as a furnace at the team's suburban Vancouver practice complex that was missing parts.

"You see all the little things he did around the locker room to make this place more professional and make it feel like you were coming in to do a job and that you should have pride no matter what," Bates said.

"Those little things that give you success is what he did, and that's what we're trying to focus on."