The CFL’s man in ... Scotland?
Ticats fan Eastwood writes about the league he loves from 5,000 kilometres away
Through his 18 years, he’s lived all over the United Kingdom as well as in Fiji, New Zealand, Scotland, Bangladesh and Indonesia. That nomadic existence is part of the deal when your dad works for the British government.
Spy?
“Everyone says that,” laughs Oliver Eastwood.
No, British aid program. Anyway, a few years back in the middle of a move from New Zealand to Scotland, the family stopped to visit his mother’s parents and 10 siblings in Hamilton. During the stay, his grandfather told him he had a pair of tickets for the two of them to go see the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. “It was a Ticats-Argos game,” Eastwood says.
Not that a detail like that mattered at the time. His was not a sports family. Not even soccer. Never really interested him. Still, going to a game and spending time with grandpa would be fun. So they headed down to Ivor Wynne, sat in the family section and took it all in. Eastwood was 10 then and doesn’t remember who won — probably the Ticats, he says, though admitting that could simply be his bias talking — but he remembers being amazed and engrossed.
“To be going to a sporting event and to see those players out there killing each other and the roar of the crowd, it was fabulous,” he says. “It just flicked a switch for me.”
Even so, that was that. Once the family picked up and finished their voyage to their new home, the CFL was behind them. Eight years ago, there was only one computer in the home and that was dad’s for work. There wasn’t much opportunity to keep up with the league.
When they visited Canada in subsequent summers, he’d make his way up to the TV room with grandpa and watch games — “I loved that so much” — but that was the extent of it.
Eventually, though, more electronics entered the home. And, as they did, Eastwood discovered games were being streamed online, which opened a new world to him.
By the end of last season, his mind was swimming with thoughts of the CFL he couldn’t really share with anyone for obvious reasons. Mention football to anyone in Glasgow and they think of Celtics, Rangers and soccer. Still.
“Most people don’t even know the CFL exists,” he says. “They may have heard of the NFL but they’ve never heard of Canadian football.”
(Note to commissioner Randy Ambrosie: Might have to accelerate that CFL 2.0 program.) Then he stumbled upon a CFL podcast being done by two expats in Tokyo. If they could do it, why couldn’t he? So he jotted down some ideas and launched The End Zone blog. It got a few views, which is about what he was hoping.
He started mentioning his stuff on Twitter. That led to an offer to join the writing team at a site called The Last Word on Canadian Football. Where, since January, he’s been writing about the success story that was the Baltimore Stallions, the challenges for growing the game in Atlantic Canada, the uncertain future being faced by 2020 draft picks and more.
“Viewership has really gone up,” he says.
Numbers are still modest but it’s growing. Which is saying something for a post originating 5,000 kilometres from the closest CFL stadium. And his offerings are good.
Still, there is that distance. And there is this whole COVID-19 thing.
Those challenges aren’t affecting Eastwood’s ability to generate opinion or come up with story ideas but they will prevent him from crossing the ocean this summer and seeing any games live.
Which hurts. Both as a fan and now as a writer.
There is hope, however.
“(Before Grade 11) My father promised me if I make it into the international relations course at St. Andrews (Scotland’s oldest university founded in 1413), I’ll buy you a plane ticket back to Canada,” he says.
He starts university in the fall. At the University of St. Andrews.
In international relations. Yes, he plans to collect.