It’d sure be nice to put out tire fire with green blood

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This article was published 02/09/2016 (3324 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The games all count for the same number of points in the standings.

But that doesn’t mean every game is equal in the CFL.

Make no mistake, Sunday’s annual Labour Day Classic between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders is worth more than the others.

Just ask any long-suffering fan in blue and gold who’s had sand kicked in his face for more than a decade by this city’s hated prairie rivals in Regina whether the game is just one of 18 on the schedule.

It’s not; this one is big every year, regardless of either team’s record in the first half of the season. It’s even more special this year… in Winnipeg, anyway.

Consider the backdrop: After opening the season at 1-4, the Bombers have won four games in a row and finally have wind in their sails as the kids head back to school. A win in Regina would allow the team to keep pace in what’s looking like it’s going to be a gruelling West Division playoff race and also set an important tone for the second half of the season, when the football matters most.

Meanwhile, over in Regina, the Riders are 1-8 and have been mired in controversy all season long. The latest episode in the sorry saga arrived earlier this week when the club announced it couldn’t possibly live another day without signing an unrepentant anti-Semite to the payroll.

The Riders, in other words, need this one. Desperately and for a lot of reasons.

So that’s what this game means to the players and coaches. But the fans? Well, a Winnipeg win in Regina would not only stick a dagger in the Riders but also provide a long-awaited measure of redemption for the brave ones who’ve been slinking home from the Queen City with their tails between their legs for far too long now.

The only thing worse than spending the final long weekend of your summer in Regina is to have to also endure a heaping helping of abuse from the most obnoxious fan base in Canada on your way out of town.

The Riders have owned the Bombers for a long time now, as their fans never tire of telling us.

And, sadly, they’re right — hey, even a blind pig finds the occasional truffle.

It’s a cold, hard truth that for all the hype that surrounds the Bombers’ supposedly bitter rivalry with our next-door neighbours to the west, it really hasn’t been much of a rivalry at all for a very long time.

Let’s face it, what kind of rivalry is it when one team has won — take a deep breath now; no, deeper — 18 of the last 24 games between the two teams and… every single Labour Day “Classic” (not so much) since 2004.

Rivalry? That’s a bloodbath.

And nowhere has Blue blood been spilled more painfully than on the turf at Mosaic Field on the Labour Day weekend.

While the Bombers-Riders rivalry generally has been lopsided for years — although it’s worth noting Winnipeg won two of three last season — back-to-school beatings… uh, meetings have been particularly cringe-worthy.

It’s not so much that the Bombers have lost 11 Classics in a row, although that’s plenty bad enough; it’s that Winnipeg has gotten absolutely shellacked in those losses.

The Bombers have been outscored by the guys in green on the first Sunday of September by a combined score of 389-188 over the last 11 years.

Yes, you read that right. Yes, I’m sure.

Bombers fans are still trying to forget the 52-0 pasting Winnipeg took in Regina in 2012. But while that was rock-bottom — the players, coaches and ever-optimistic fans should have checked into rehab the next day — it was far from the only butt-kicking the Bombers have taken there over the years.

A 45-26 loss in 2005 that marked the long-ago start of the current skid was also ugly, as was a 39-12 miss the next year, a 19-6 defeat in 2008, a 27-7 failure in 2011, a 48-25 humiliation in 2013, a… well, you get the picture.

This year, the oddsmakers have Winnipeg as 4.5-point favourites heading into Regina and fans have every reason to think this is the weekend their losing streak finally comes to an end.

But a note of caution: this year’s backdrop looks a lot like 2011, when the Bombers carried a five-game winning streak and a 7-1 record into the land of watermelon helmets, only to — you guessed it — lose to the 1-7 Riders on Labour Day Weekend.

The Bombers never fully recovered from that debacle, going on to lose seven of their final 10 regular-season games, before winning the East Final and losing to B.C. in the Grey Cup.

All of which is to say, bad things happen to Bombers teams — even the good ones — in Regina.

The new and improved 2016 Bombers have shed a lot of unfortunate history the last month or so; their second consecutive victory during this streak was a first for this team since 2014; the current four-game roll is their longest in five years; and that win after a bye week last month was a rarity.

But there’s still one more tire still burning.

And man, this one’s a doozy.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek