Blame Windsor: ‘South Detroit’ has been sucking the Bombers’ luck

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This article was published 26/11/2018 (2794 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mathematically speaking, something dastardly seems to be afoot.

I began to suspect dark forces were at work as I watched the Blue Bombers fall 22-14 to the Calgary Stampeders in the Western final, extending the Blue and Gold’s Grey Cup drought to 28 years, the longest futility streak in the league.

Think about it: the Bombers play in a nine-team league and they haven’t sipped champagne from the (bad word) Cup since 1990 — before Justin Bieber was born and when that “I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up” TV ad was airing — when they battered the Edmonton Eskimos 50-11 in Vancouver’s B.C. Place.

Since then, nada. Based on nothing more than my vague understanding of the laws of probability, the Bombers’ 28-year championship drought doesn’t make any sense. Especially when you consider our gridiron heroes had a 96.5 per cent chance of taking at least one title during that dry spell.

I mean, the internet says there was only a 3.5 per cent chance Winnipeg wouldn’t win a Grey Cup in that stretch. As a respected football expert, I am forced to ask a difficult question: what’s up with that, eh?

Well, I think I know, but it’s going to take a few minutes to explain. I became truly suspicious that our city was being victimized when I stumbled on a breathless news report about how lottery players in Windsor, Ont., a city with only about 217,000 residents, have been winning lottery jackpots faster than… well… faster than the Bombers have been winning Grey Cups.

According to a boastful news report in the Windsor Star, that city’s lotto gamblers have been defying the odds with unseemly regularity.

For starters, someone in Windsor won the guaranteed $1-million Lotto 6/49 draw last Wednesday. Last month, Connie Martin, a 58-year-old caregiver in Windsor, won $5 million on the Lotto 6/49 draw of Oct. 24.

Also last month, a Lotto MAX ticket purchased in Windsor won $500,000 in the draw on Oct. 12. More recently, a Windsor ticket won $433,000 in the Lotto MAX draw of Nov. 16.

This makes zero statistical sense, because the odds of winning Lotto 6/49 are one in 13,983,816, whereas the odds of winning the big prize in Lotto Max are something like one in 28 million.

The odds are so ridiculous that, based on a few minutes of randomly Googling things, you are far more likely to:

● Be hit by lightning once (one in 960,000);

● Be attacked by a shark (one in 11.5 million);

● Be killed by fireworks (one in 340,733);

● Be murdered at the Grand Canyon (one in 8,156,000);

● Date a supermodel (one in 880,000).

So what is up with Windsor’s against-the-odds winning streak? Why does Windsor seem to have all the luck while Winnipeg, home to the most winter parkas in Canada, can’t win a (bad word) Grey Cup in almost three (bad word) decades?

Only one thing makes sense. Thanks to some kind of evil alien death ray or an ancient Egyptian curse, all of Winnipeg’s luck is draining out of the city, rolling along the border with the U.S. until it reaches the eastern portion of Ontario, at which point it cascades down south in that squid-shaped Ontario appendage that thrusts itself into America’s underbelly before pooling together in our southernmost city, namely Windsor.

If you think about it for a minute, that is the only logical explanation. It’s not that I have anything against Windsor, because I don’t. In fact, I don’t know a single thing about Windsor other than… (hold on while I look it up on Google)… “it was a major source of liquor during American Prohibition.”

So I would like to be happy for the lotto-winning folks in Windsor, but I just can’t find it in my tiny, jealous heart, because I have reached the stage of life where it is difficult to enjoy good things happening to anyone other than myself, or people who are willing to lend me money.

Am I bitter? Ha ha ha! Don’t be stupid — of course I’m bitter. Those goofballs in Windsor (I don’t know what they are called, but I assume it is something lame like “Windsorites” or “Windsorians.”) are getting rich off of good luck that was meant for people in this Prairie city.

I mean, Winnipeg had the Guess Who, but what has Windsor ever done other than ALMOST getting mentioned in that 1981 arena-rock anthem Don’t Stop Believin’ from U.S. rockers Journey?

You know the song I am talking about. For reasons I do not understand, it is the most downloaded song in history, and a few years ago, it was named in a survey as the best driving song in history, despite the fact that, in my view, Radar Love by Golden Earring is a far better song in terms of getting guys like me to stomp down on the gas pedal.

It’s the song where the inimitable Steve Perry sings the following geographically challenged lyric: “Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit.”

For those of you who failed Grade 5 geography, there is NO South Detroit. Unless you have spent the better part of your life hiding in a drainpipe, you will know that if you go south of downtown Detroit you will end up in Canada, specifically Windsor, which is directly across the Detroit River.

Perry has famously offered this explanation: “I tried north Detroit, I tried east and west and it didn’t sing, but south Detroit sounded so beautiful. I loved the way it sounded, only to find out later it’s actually Canada.”

Maybe he can come up with a followup song wherein he boosts Winnipeg’s sagging fortunes by singing about a Prairie boy raised in “north Fargo,” but somehow, I doubt that is going to happen.

What we have to do is figure out some way to prevent this city’s liquefied luck — along with hefty jackpots and shiny Grey Cups — from flowing east and pooling up in South Detroit, if you catch my less-than-subtle drift.

Until that happens, Bombers fans, we can just count our lucky stars that Windsor doesn’t have a CFL team.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca