CALGARY - Anthony Calvillo says everything he did this season was in preparation for the Grey Cup game.

Feeling the effects of advancing age, the 37-year-old Montreal quarterback decided a change was needed when he was branded a loser by many after the Alouettes were beaten in the Grey Cup for the fifth time in six tries at Olympic Stadium last November. He wanted to be in the best shape ever for another shot at the CFL championship in 2009.

He teamed with two personal trainers to change his workout and nutritional regimens, with the goal to be as fresh physically and mentally at the end of the season as on the first day of training camp.

The 16-year CFL veteran says it worked.

"My energy level has totally changed," Calvillo said this week as the Alouettes prepared to face the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the Grey Cup game on Sunday. "Last year, I had to do a sitdown interview on TSN after the (East Division final)and I was exhausted.

"This year, I was ready to go out and play another game."

He led the Alouettes to a team-record 15-3 season, and only failed to reach 5,000 passing yards for a sixth time because he sat out of two games and a half games down the stretch. With a 72 per cent completion rate for 4,639 yards and a league-leading 26 touchdowns, he earned a second straight Most Outstanding Player award - the third of his career.

If anything, Calvillo looks to be getting better with age.

Before this season, some felt it may be his last, but the East Los Angeles native said he's ready to go on for as long as he can.

"I'll sit down and evaluate, but I do feel I can play for another couple of years," he said.

If he does, there's a good chance he will overtake career records that looked to be etched in stone by iron man Damon Allen over his 23-year career.

Calvillo is a little over 9,000 yards short of Allen's 72,381 passing yards, fewer than 500 short of his 5,158 completions and 40 scores short of Allen's 394 career TD passes. Two average seasons for Calvillo and the records are all his.

General manager Jim Popp has seen a promising back-up emerge in Adrian McPherson, but would be delighted if Calvillo stayed on.

"No question - it's Anthony's job till he's ready to step away," said Popp. "As he's told us, he'll monitor it from year to year, but there's no question he can play for a number of years and our hope is that he will play for a number of years. It's his job as long as he wants it."

Marc Trestman, who took over as Montreal's coach last season after a long NFL career, calls Calvillo "brilliant," and a "gym rat" who is always ready to work more to be ready.

"He transcends the locker-room," Trestman said. "He relates to everyone.

"Everyone loves and respects him."

Looking healthy, and perhaps lighter than past seasons, Calvillo will be looking to erase the one blight on his otherwise stellar career: he and his team's subpar play in Grey Cup finals.

It's the seventh time since 2000 that the Alouettes have reached the Grey Cup, but they have only one win in 2002, a game where Calvillo struggled that was won mainly by the defence.

"We've had many chances and come up short, but I'm just glad that I have one more opportunity to win a championship," he said. "We're sick and tired of losing. We all sense that we have an excellent team now and we're going to go out and compete."

Fellow Alouettes like centre Bryan Chiu are behind him.

"At the end of the day, quarterbacks are measured by championships and he has (only) one, but what a lot of people don't realize is that it takes 42 guys to perform at a high level to win a Grey Cup and he gets a lot of unfair blame when we lose," said Chiu. "There were a lot where he played well and we didn't rally around him to help him out."

Calvillo's career nearly ended in 2007, when he took time off near the end of the season to tend to his wife Alexia, who was battling abdominal cancer. It appears her fight was successful, as the Calvillos and their two young children seem to have developed a new appreciation for their health and their goals in life.

The rangy quarterback, who teammates call the hardest-working player in the locker-room, now looks to be taking on the aging process itself.

It starts with what he eats. Blood tests showed he had trouble breaking down dairy products, sugar and gluten, so they were eliminated and a new diet was introduced to go along with his physical and mental exercises.

"I have planned this to a T to get myself ready for this particular game, and the nutrition plus the fact that I was able to stay in great shape through the season has got me to this point," he said. "I'm excited because I want to see it pay off."