They’re lumberjacks. They’re OK
Flannel-clad lumberjacks slice a log, then brand the ‘cookie’ for every Ottawa touchdown, writes Robert Bostelaar.
For Redblacks fans, there’s no sweeter sound than the roar of the chainsaw that, in the capable grip of a flannel-clad lumberjack, slices through a log in the end zone to signify every home-side touchdown.
Introduced in the team’s debut 2014 season, the routine has already cemented itself as a fun tradition. Television broadcasts can’t resist showing it.
Like the Redblacks’ plaid third uniform and Big Joe muscled mascot, the log-sawing ritual is a homage to the capital’s beginnings as a rough, tough lumber town. But while the city has, er, branched out, the lumber industry remains a mainstay for much of the Ottawa Valley. And that ensures the team an authentic supply of lumberjacks, drawn from the Forestry Technician program at Algonquin College’s Pembroke campus.
“For us it’s great PR,” says Chris Ryan, a professor in the program and coach of the Algonquin’s Loggersports team, which competes with other 14 schools in such Canadian pursuits as axe-throwing, pole-climbing — and sawing.
Students, he says, get to show off their “old-time logging skills” to a full stadium and national television audience. “And it promotes forestry — it shows people that forestry is not a dinosaur. It’s alive and very, very well.”
The students are still working on the original white ash log, “and there’s not much log left,” Ryan notes. “There’s about four feet.”
The team doesn’t want to tempt fate by bringing in a new one for the last home game, so the lumberjacks will be keeping their “wood cookies” especially thin, he says.
After the log is cut, game broadcasts invariably move to a commercial. Fans at the stadium, however, see the second part of the process. The cookie is branded with the Redblacks logo and presented to a deserving guest at the game. It might be someone who has raised millions for charity, says Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group vice-president Randy Burgess, or a breast cancer survivor who rallies others to fight the disease.
Burgess says he’s always moved by the applause the recipients get.
“For me seeing the fans give that ovation to a person who has really made a contribution to the community … it’s tremendous.”
You know that Canadian football has three downs, versus the four chances American teams get earn a first down. But there are other differences — all of which make for a livelier and less predictable contest, Canadian game fans insist.
We have 12 players per side, for instance, which is one more than the Yanks. And Canadian fields are longer and wider than those of their U.S. counterparts, and the end zones are deeper. This is a result of Canada’s adoption of the metric system in the 1970s.
OK, it isn’t. The Canadian field is still measured in yards — 110 by 65, versus 100 by 53.5. Some say the American field was reduced because of space limitations at Yale (which indeed is a hard school to get into).
But the football itself, depending on supplier, can be a tad longer in the United States — if, that is, the ball is fully inflated.
For us it’s great PR. And it promotes forestry — it shows people that forestry is not a dinosaur.
CHRIS RYAN