Wordless wednesday – The train
Venturing into Enemy Territory
Every fan of a CFL team needs to go on a road trip with their team at least once in their lifetime. It may not be feasible to go and see your team in every CFL city but hopefully you can go to the one closest to you. It truly is an unforgettable experience.
For starters, just getting to Hamilton is an adventure in one way streets, streets that suddenly end, and road closures. So much fun. It’s almost like they don’t want opposing fans to find the stadium.
There is no real, designated parking lot near the stadium, instead you get to drive up and down all the streets around Ivor Wynne and (in my case) settle on a street in a not too bad in daylight but sketchy as all get out neighbourhood and walk for 15 minutes to the stadium. At least it was free.
The game day experience is truly awesome though. Granted I didn’t wear my Argo blues until I was safely in the stadium and sitting with other Argo fans. As a female walking on my own, it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
95% of Hamilton fans are great people out for fun at a game. The other 5% are drunken jerks who are not really football fans so much as they are drinking fans. These are the ones who have already put back 4 or 5 beers before they get to the stadium, consume another 4 during the game (what happened to not being served if you were intoxicated?) and then resume drinking when they are either ejected from the stadium or after the game. I like to actually watch a football game and remember that I was there, so I don’t get the whole “how much can I drink before, during and after the game” philosophy.
About 5 minutes into the game, the heavens opened up a bit. It rained fairly steadily for about 15 minutes. That’s the beauty of outdoor football people! I brought a rain poncho for myself and at the last-minute had stuck in a package of the disposable ponchos – which came in handy. The amusing thing was that all the Ti-cat fans around us ran for the exits to get out of the rain while the Toronto fans stuck it out. Shouldn’t it have been the other way around since the Argo fans are used to the comfort of the Rogers Centre Skydome? I love football outside – although I would think twice about bringing my piccolo out to play in the band when it would get rained on.
Halftime included an awesome tribute to Bernie Custis, a true football pioneer. Custis was the first African-American quarterback to play in the CFL. After an outstanding collegiate career with the Syracuse Orangemen, Custis was told that he could not play the position he had excelled at. The Cleveland Browns, one of the more progressive teams in the NFL, told Custis that if he wanted to play, he would have to convert to be a running back. Custis declined, and instead headed north to Canada. As he said last night, in Canada he had the freedom that he had lacked in the US. Freedom to play the position he excelled at regardless of the colour of his skin. Custis earned the starting position in his first year in the CFL and went on to play 8 more seasons with the Tiger Cats. As the first African-American quarterback in professional football, Custis blazed a path that many have followed. Without Custis there would be no Damon Allen, no Henry Burris, no Warren Moon. If Bernie Custis had simply accepted the position change to running back, who knows when the next opportunity for an African-American quarterback would have arrived. A truly remarkable man with a great story. There is a documentary film coming out in the new year and I can’t wait to watch the story of this hall-of-fame quarterback!
The PA announcer at Ivor Wynne does a great job of getting the fans into the game. Toronto could learn a lot from the Ti-cats in this regard. Even the amusing scoreboard animation when there was a video review got the fans geared up and making noise. I was glad I brought earplugs, and not just because I was sitting between two Argo fans with very loud noisemakers. There weren’t a lot of Argo fans in the stands at Ivor Wynne – but the ones who made the trip down the QEW made sure the team knew they were there!
The atmosphere in Ivor Wynne Stadium is a lot more electric than at the Rogers Centre. The fans may be chanting “Argos Suck” or some other equally inventive cheer but they’re loud and they’re proud. Toronto fans could take a lesson from their Hamilton counterparts – on Thursday, be loud and brash (but please skip being drunk and obnoxious) and come cheer on your Argonaut football team. I know it’s being called the “bottom bowl” and that both teams are 1-6. Even more reason to come out and support the Double Blue – it’s easy to be a fan when the team is winning. It’s much harder to stick by them when they’re frustrating to watch and losing games you think they should win.
All in all it was a great experience. Yes there were a few drunken idiots who hassled me as i tried to get to my car. Better alcohol control in the stadium would improve things immensely in that regard. That said, I will still go back to Hamilton the next time the Argos play there and cheer loudly and proudly for the Double Blue.
Sexism and the CFL
Look, I’m not new here. I get that football is a male dominated sport and that some teams like Toronto and Hamilton have an amazing rivalry going. I get the good-natured ribbing that goes on between the fans of the two teams. I do, however, expect players to rise above some of the more juvenile fan chants. I am vacillating between rage, disgust and disbelief at the fact that a player such as Avon Cobourne would retweet something as sexist and insulting towards women as this
I get that fans can be sexist jerks. I expect much better from CFL players. It’s not funny. It’s insulting to women as whole and to the dedicated ladies on the Argos cheer team in particular. I’m hoping that someone either from the team or from the league (or both) will sit down and have a very serious talk with Mr. Cobourne about the implications of retweeting something. The guiding principle on twitter should be “would I say this to someone standing in front of me?” if the answer is no, then you shouldn’t retweet. It’s that simple.
Why I love the CFL
I am a football fan. I like pretty much any football – Canadian, American, college, junior, heck even midget and pee-wee. I love the strategy and tactics of the game. Football is a giant chess match played with rather large pieces and at a full contact pace. To anyone who says that football players aren’t intelligent, I dare you to read and understand a playbook. Even once you know the playbook you have to constantly adapt and make split-second decisions. Football is truly an intellectual sport. I love the challenge of sitting in the stands or standing on the sidelines and predicting (with decent accuracy too) what play is going to come next or what the defensive response is going to be.
But there’s another reason I love the CFL. The players. You’d be hard pressed to find another group of professional athletes as devoted to their communities as the CFL players are. Players on any given team make hundreds (yes hundreds) of community appearances each year. Most of these are done quietly and with very little fanfare. For example, Taylor Robertson of the Toronto Argonauts set up his own foundation last year – the Life on the Line foundation – dedicated to raising money for Breast Cancer research. Taylor makes dozens of appearances for his charity over and above what he already does as a member of the Argonauts. These are on his down time. After a long day of practicing or on a rare day off, he chooses to go out and make a difference. It’s not an Argo thing either – I can cite examples on every single CFL team of a player who goes above and beyond.
Like Marwan Hage of the Hamilton Tiger Cats. (Why does it seem like the biggest guys on the team are the softest touches?) Not satisfied with simply bringing a minor football team to every game to watch from the “Hage’s Heroes” seats (which in itself is pretty awesome), Hage also gets involved in the Hamilton food bank and with kids at McMaster Children’s Hospital. Let’s not forget the Ticats QB Kevin Glenn who, in partnership with local Tim Hortons owners in Hamilton is bringing 250 kids from the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation to the game on Saturday. Wow.
I’m not going to list every single CFL player who has a charitable organization – the list would be too long. But even if a player hasn’t founded or partnered with an organization, it doesn’t mean that they’re still not active in the community. I have been going to CFL games for 30 years now (yep since I was an infant!). I have yet to see a player refuse a fan an autograph. I have more often than not seen players who were hot and tired after a hard-fought game wanting nothing more than to jump in a hot tub or a cool shower stay and sign autographs for waiting fans. That, more than any other reason is why I love the CFL. This Is our league.
On injuries and life in the CFL
This has not been a good week for CFL players. Two of the nicest guys in the game have gone down with season-ending injuries. Fred Stamps of the Edmonton Eskimos suffered internal bleeding after taking a hard hit early in last week’s game. He complained of tenderness and was taken to hospital where it was determined that he had internal bleeding and that he would need immediate season-ending surgery. Thankfully the surgery went well and he is home in Edmonton recuperating.
The second injury hits closer to home – Kevin Eiben one of the nicest guys on a team full of nice guys, the Toronto Argonauts, suffered a torn pectoral muscle (even typing that hurts!) in last week’s loss to Montreal. the MRI revealed that surgery was required and Kevin’s season ended on Tuesday.
Football is a collision sport. It usually involves two (or more) people hurling themselves at each other in order to get or stop a gain of yards. Injuries happen. What has been amazing is how each of these men have stepped back up and supported their teammates while injured. Fred Stamps is a leader in the locker room as well as on the field and has stated that his injury will not alter that. Kevin Eiben was at Argo team meetings on Wednesday morning after his surgery on Tuesday evening.
That’s what is so great about the CFL. Players care enough about their team and their teammates that even when their season is done, they still come back and support them. This is truly OUR league.