Big boys don’t cry, except when they do

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/12/2017 (3151 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grab a family-sized box of Kleenex, kids, because it’s going to get a little mushy in this space today.

That’s because we need to take a few minutes to have a heartfelt discussion about today’s topic, which happens to be when it’s acceptable for guys of my particular gender to shed manly tears in public places.

This topic presented itself last Sunday night, after the underdog Toronto Argonauts shocked the highly favoured Calgary Stampeders 27-24 in the 105th Grey Cup game at TD Place Stadium in Ottawa.

As we stared up at my buddy Kevin’s big-screen TV, there was Toronto’s 38-year-old star quarterback, Ricky Ray, the first starting QB to win four Grey Cup championships in CFL history, trying to sort out his manly feelings on national TV.

“It’s just…,” Ray started to tell some CBC interviewer before his voice trailed off, his chin began to quiver and his eyes became decidedly misty. “I’m in awe, man, probably like everyone else.”

Which is when, in the middle of our Grey Cup party, my wife, She Who Must Not Be Named, piped up: “Are you kidding me? He just won the Grey Cup and now he’s gonna cry? Boo hoo hoo! He should try having a baby; that’s something worth crying about.”

It would be safe to say that all the men in my buddy’s Kevin’s living room were aghast, even though most of them don’t have a clue what aghast means.

Before I could interject, Kevin bravely snorted: “You’re allowed to cry when you win the Grey Cup. Only a few dozen guys get to win the Grey Cup, whereas thousands of guys have babies every (bad word) year!”

Sniffed my wife: “You mean their wives have babies.”

Replied Kevin: “Fine, but you get my point.”

Then, two days later, we were in our den, staring at the TV screen as Eli Manning, who has been the starting quarterback for the New York Giants for more than 13 years, tried to explain the pain of being benched for the rest of the season, ending his string of 210 consecutive starts.

There was Eli, a two-time Super Bowl MVP, standing in the locker room, surrounded by reporters, tears welling in his eyes and his chin definitely quivering as he tried to put into words how much it hurt to know his time in the sun was drawing to an end.

“It’s hard,” he sniffed, his face growing redder by the second. “Hard day to handle this. But I’ll hang in there and figure it out.”

Which is when my wife started to say: “Really? He’s going to cry…”

Which is when I cut her off to explain that, despite our cold-fish reputations, guys like me actually possess innermost feelings and, sometimes, they bubble to the surface, especially in the following completely understandable situations:

● When, after many years of striving, you have just won and/or lost the championship in a major televised sporting event;

● When, after many years at the top of your game, it becomes clear that your skills have begun to fade, and you are going to be replaced by a younger athlete with better hair;

● When you are watching football or hockey or soccer or some other contact sport and you personally witness a beloved professional athlete sustaining what the announcers will refer to as “a lower-body injury” after being smacked by a puck or a cleated foot in a medically sensitive part of the anatomy, forcing you, the sympathetic male viewer, to instinctively cover your own medically important area, just in case;

● Watching as a superstar athlete, a player you have revered for decades, a player whose poster has adorned your bedroom walls since you were a kid, is unceremoniously traded to another team, just like Aug. 9, 1988, when Wayne Gretzky was shipped from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings just 12 weeks after the Oilers closed out a four-game sweep of the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup.

It was a sucker punch to the hearts of patriotic Canadian hockey fans, and we were all turned into whimpering puddles of manly goo when, at a news conference announcing “The Trade,” Gretzky bravely said, “I promised Mess (Mark Messier) I wouldn’t do this, but the time comes when…” before being overcome by a tidal wave of manly sports-related emotions.

● When we are faced with an unexpected domestic crisis, such as what happened to me the other day when I asked my wife about a strange smell in the kitchen.

“I’m making brussels sprouts for dinner,” she explained.

“But… but… but I HATE brussels sprouts,” I wailed. “Waaaaaaaaaah!”

Rolling her eyeballs, my wife quickly added: “I’m frying them with bacon.”

Which is when I bravely dried my eyes, fought through the pain, and sniffed: “Bacon? OK. I love you, sweetie!”

● When something bad happens to a dog in a war movie, or any other Hollywood-style blockbuster.

The example I will give here occurred several years ago when I watched the hit movie Marley & Me, wherein a badly behaved yellow Labrador retriever causes his family no end of grief until, at the end of the movie, he passes away and is buried under a tree in his family’s front yard.

What happened was I forced my daughter to watch this film with me and, as we sat in the den, bawling, dabbing at our eyes with cold face cloths, my buddy Bob arrived to pick me up for some manner of manly event, such as our annual office hockey pool draft.

There I was, dabbing my red-rimmed eyes, snivelling loudly and putting my emotions on public display, as Bob, who was raised on a farm and views animals in a slightly more pragmatic manner, scowled at me, folded his arms and shook his head to convey his disappointment.

I will understand if some of you want to add other examples to the list of when men are allowed to weep openly. It is even possible that, one day, men will be able to openly shed tears over the topic of babies.

I mean, imagine having a baby, then imagine the pain of watching that baby grow up and become an NHL star… and then get traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Somebody hand me a (bad word) tissue!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca