BIG-TIME UNDERDOGS
But Ottawa can take comfort in history for scoring an upset
No one is giving the Redblacks a chance this Sunday, and there is good reason for that.
The Stampeders have proven all season long they are head and shoulders above the rest of the league. Statistically they have no comparison. They toyed with the league’s second best team in the West final, and the game was over in the second quarter. They were 15-2-1 during the regular season.
All you have to do is take a quick glance at the CFL history book, however, to think the Redblacks might not be the gopher to Calgary’s Mack truck like everyone thinks they will be.
Ottawa, at 8-9-1, is the sixth team with a losing record to reach the Grey Cup since 1948, when the CFL went to a 12 game schedule. The first three times it happened the team with the better record prevailed, although the Ottawa Rough Riders (5-11) gave the Eskimos (141-1) a serious run for their money in 1981 before falling 26-23.
The last two occasions a team with a losing record got to the Grey Cup, the underdogs ended up stealing Earl Grey’s mug right out from under the favourites’ noses. The 2000 Lions were 8-10, but they upset the Alouettes (126). One year later the Stampeders (8-10) shocked the Bombers (14-4) in the title game.
Being the underdog can be a powerful motivator.
NENSHI DOUBLES DOWN ON MAYORS’ BETS
This football season has turned Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi into a riverboat gambler.
Nenshi has bets going with mayors from two different cities this weekend. The University of Calgary Dinos face Quebec City’s Laval Rouge et Or in Saturday’s Vanier Cup, followed by Sunday’s Grey Cup game between the Stampeders and the Redblacks.
“I’m excited because as you know Calgary teams are playing in two national championships this weekend,” Nenshi told reporters Tuesday at city hall while decked out in a Stampeders jersey.
Nenshi’s Grey Cup bet with Ottawa mayor Jim Watson has a culinary component. If the Stampeders win, Nenshi will get a gift of Ottawa’s famous beaver tails. A Redblacks victory will earn Watson salted caramel doughnuts from a Calgary company.
“Apparently he would like to be saltier and sweeter,” Nenshi said of his national capital counterpart.
Watson countered on Twitter with “Hey @nenshi, that doughnut may be called Nenshi’s Salted Caramel, but it has my name all over it!”
The losing team’s mayor wears the winning team’s jersey and reads a poem, chosen or written by the winning team’s mayor, at a next council meeting.
The loser mayor must also make a financial donation to the winning city’s food bank equivalent to 10 times the game’s score differential.
Nenshi’s Vanier Cup wager with Quebec City mayor Regis Labeaume is similar, but with a FrenchEnglish language twist.
“It’ll be a little more fun because it’s not only reading the poem. The poem is in the other language,” Nenshi said.
Calgary’s mayor couldn’t resist a poke at Energy East pipeline politics in proposing maple syrup and bitumen be included in their bet.
“Unfortunately I’ve been told that there is no pipeline and he doesn’t want to transport it by rail,” Nenshi quipped.