The CFL: a reflection of all that’s Canadian

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/07/2010 (5636 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Perhaps it was around the time that Montreal Alouettes receiver S.J. Green made an Oh-No-You-Dii-Eynt one-handed reception in overtime, on Canada Day no less, before a gopher-loving, watermelon-hatted throng at Mosaic Stadium, that the CFL reminded us once again of its unique and daffy connection to the land of its birth.

For those who hunkered down across Canada to witness the July 1 opener — a tentative affair (sarcasm) where the hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders prevailed 54-51 — there were no doubt discussions that began with, “Is that the greatest game you ever saw?”

Or, “Geezus, do they not get Sesame Street in Regina?”

The latter, of course, was the reaction to the unfathomable too many men penalty call taken by the Riders when they appeared to have won the game in the first overtime series. But just as they had done in last year’s Grey Cup loss to Montreal, the Riders once again had 13 men on the field. Cue an Avon Cobourne touchdown run with Green’s immaculate two-point convert reception to tie the score 48-48.

For real? Are the poor Riders hard of counting? Yet that’s also the inherent beauty of the CFL, our own national playpen, where only we could watch that too many men call in horror/disbelief/hilarity and get the cruel joke.

And only we could watch the Riders rebound from a 21-point deficit — largely accomplished through a barrage of explosive plays and highlight reel catches — as though it were expected, apart from the spectacular individual plays.

“Wow,” a speechless Riders quarterback Darian Durant told the Regina Leader-Post, probably winded after throwing for 478 yards. “That’s the only way I can describe that game.”

True that.

Now this is admittedly a smalltown sentiment, to be sure. Possibly a Prairie mindset, too, when it comes to the little old CFL which, relatively speaking for 21st century professional sports, is a pauper’s league with a priceless past.

But one of my prevailing thoughts as the Rider-Als game unfolded was that it was the first of 14 CFL games this season to be televised on the NFL Network. Now that shouldn’t matter a lick to most hosers, since the more relevant news was that the TSN audience, at its peak for Thursday night’s fireworks, was 1.8 million. So who cares if 18 Americans watched, right?

I mean, we’re always too overly concerned about Americans interested in our sports passions. That attitude almost ruined the CFL. It has been the Achilles heel of the NHL for decades.

Still, there was something satisfying about knowing that American football fans with an insatiable appetite for the sport — these people will watch draft combines live, for Gawd sakes — will get a taste of the CFL at its wacky and wild best.

If that sheer jubilation in the jam-packed, green-coated stands doesn’t expose a thick helping of Canadiana to the world, what will? Even more important, however, was exposing the same giddy scene to Canadians.

Because in its modest way, the CFL provides us something that almost every other league doesn’t, a piece of sports real estate that is truly ours. And maybe that’s just fine against the global, corporate backdrop of, say, the ongoing World Cup of soccer.

Same goes for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who on Friday night served notice that the franchise may once again rise from weak link to contender with quarterback Buck Pierce at the controls. That’s not a minor development in a city that hasn’t won a championship in two decades.

Think about it: There are Winnipeggers who’ve been born, learned to walk and talk, finished kindergarten, whizzed through grade school, learned to play the piano, had their first kiss, went to their first Metallica concert, got a driver’s licence, worked the drive-through at McDonalds and graduated from high school — without ever seeing the Bombers hoist a Grey Cup once.

So on Monday morning, if not sooner, there’s no question the CFL’s opening weekend had football fans in both Regina and Winnipeg atwitter with promise.

Maybe Labour Day and the Banjo Bowl won’t require a crime-scene investigation, after all.

Maybe the Riders will learn to count to 13 by then, and Buck Pierce will learn to slide.

Not many folks outside the Great White North will know what any of that means.

You know, because it’s all so Canadian.

And that’s just fine, thank you.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

   Read full biography