Hey, Canada: the Bombers — the ‘other’ team in the Grey Cup? They’re from Winnipeg! By: Melissa Martin Posted: 6:30 PM CST Friday, Nov. 15, 2024

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/11/2024 (330 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KYIV — There’s a joke I’ve encountered on two different occasions as a Winnipegger visiting Toronto.

The jokes were told years apart, and by entirely unrelated people, but on both occasions the setup was the same: I met someone at an event, they asked where I was from and I replied, quite cheerfully, “Winnipeg.”

“Ohhh,” they said, and paused briefly for comedic timing. “I’m sorry.”

They grinned then, and waited for my reaction.

The best way to handle this joke, should one encounter it, is to adopt a puzzled expression and reply in an unoffended but confounded tone: “Sorry about what?”

The punchline assumes that both parties at least acknowledge a tacit premise that Winnipeg sucks. Refuse to concede that premise and it puts the joke-teller in the awkward position of having to explain why we suck.

Let me assure you, the squirming that comes next is far more entertaining than the joke itself.

Anyway, the fact that at least two different Torontonians came up with this joke isn’t important, but it is somewhat revealing about the nature of the Toronto-Winnipeg relationship.

It’s natural, perhaps, that residents of Canada’s largest, wealthiest and most culturally dynamic city would not understand the finer qualities of our little ‘burg on the prairie.

Still, there’s something about the disconnect that fires up a Winnipegger’s pride.

So when the Blue Bombers meet the Toronto Argonauts Sunday in Vancouver to contend for the 111th Grey Cup, perhaps that’s where the matchup’s off-field spice will come from.

Because let’s be honest, it certainly won’t come from any deep, personal football tension. True, the Bombers and Argos have met seven times at the Grey Cup; Toronto won all seven games, most recently the 24-23 heartbreaker in 2022.

Yet the teams aren’t archrivals; the other six clashes were more than 74 years ago.

And while Toronto has won more Grey Cups than any other team, let’s be frank: it’s been a long time since the Argos had a sufficient fanbase to generate the kind of cultural swagger needed to drive a mutually entertaining rivalry.

The CFL just gets a bit lost in the Toronto churn. In 2024, the Argos posted a regular-season attendance of just 136,162. That’s up a bit from last year, but still less than half of the Blue Bombers’ gate.

Toronto’s attendance was also — as it has been for the last decade — lowest in the league.

Yet there is still something immensely satisfying in the prospect of beating Toronto, in the same way the average Canadian NHL fan gets an extra spring in their step when their team beats the Leafs.

It’s not necessarily just about sport. It’s also about celebrating Winnipeg’s own story.

Look, geography has always vexed Canadian aspirations to a true national unity. Roughly one in six of the country’s population lives in the Greater Toronto Area; to their west, the country simply spreads out too wide and too sparsely populated for them to explore easily or fully.

So the average Torontonian will never visit Winnipeg, unless sent to us by work or a family event. They know us only through headlines, which naturally tend to highlight the worst.

This inevitably produces an insular perception of greatness: the centre of the (Canadian) universe, versus everyone else.

Nor, by the way, is this perception limited to Toronto itself. Living in Europe since last year, it’s been somewhat amusing to discover just how many Europeans think Toronto is the national capital, primarily because it’s the city they hear about most often.

Yet it has been living abroad that also reminds me why what grows at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers is, in its own way, just as special as what glitters on the banks of Lake Ontario; and why it’s a place so many of us choose to be.

There was a time in my early 20s, that — like many young Winnipeggers, especially in arts and cultural industries — I dreamed of moving to Toronto. I loved it then, as I do now. I delighted in exploring its urban textures, and the unique cosmopolitan cultural fusion that still makes it one of the most vibrant cities in the world.

But Toronto also scared me, because, unlike Winnipeg, it seemed a place where one could not only soar, but also fail. I never truly believed I could cut it, in the (really) big city. By contrast, my hometown felt as if it had more room to breathe, more space to carve out one’s own niche.

Or, as the great Winnipeg songwriter Scott Nolan once put it, in his bittersweet song If I Could Only Leave Here, “even musicians own homes in Winnipeg.”

As it turned out, I was right. I’m certain I could not have had the career I’ve had, if not writing in my own home city, about our shared stories. As the years turned, I never regretted the decision to stay in Winnipeg. Now, temporarily living abroad, the city calls to me in different ways.

On quiet nights with friends, my thoughts sometimes drift home. I start telling them about The Forks, and our festivals and the beaches of Lake Winnipeg. I tell them about the past and the present of the city, its architecture and its quirks, its sad stories and its boundless hope.

And a few days ago, on a night train back to Kyiv from a work trip to Ukraine’s south, I asked a Ukrainian friend to come over Sunday night and stay up until 1 a.m. to watch the Bombers play for the Grey Cup. At first, he demurred; like most people here, he’s never seen North American football and doesn’t know the rules.

Don’t worry, I said. I’m a Winnipeg girl. I’ll teach you.

Mostly, I realized, I just wanted him to see that my city thrives, that it has a story, a pride and a spirit. That goes as much for how we show ourselves inside Canada, as without.

And so, when the Bombers take the field Sunday, let’s celebrate it as another chance to stand up in front of a country that doesn’t always see us clearly, and declare: we’re from Winnipeg, and we’re not sorry.

Melissa Martin is the Free Press’s writer-at-large. She is currently on leave in Ukraine.

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.