In love with the game
From The Citizen’s archives: This is an edited version of a column Ted Clarke wrote in advance of the 2000 Grey Cup. In advance of this Sunday’s big game, Clarke’s words are more relevant than ever:
I can’t for the life of me understand why some people hate the CFL.
There’s a reason people go out of their way to attend professional football games in this country. No, it’s not so they can check out the cheerleaders through a pair of binoculars. It’s because they want to be entertained. And for as long as I can remember, the CFL has delivered that without fail.
Close games are exciting and so is scoring, and the CFL never lets me down.
As a kid, my blood ebbed and flowed with the fortunes of the Calgary Stampeders and still does. When we weren’t lucky enough to get into the good seats at McMahon Stadium, we’d go to Safeway and lay down a buck to buy passes that got us into the Junior Quarterback section in the end zone. It didn’t matter where we watched, we were just happy to be there.
My first CFL memory came as a nine-yearold watching my Stamps take on the Toronto Argonauts in the 1971 Grey Cup game on a soggy Empire Stadium field in Vancouver.
Of course I was back in Calgary watching it on the tube with my family but I vividly remember taking my bike for a celebratory ride through the snow, minutes after Argos running back Leon McQuay coughed up the ball just when it appeared quarterback Joe Theismann was driving them to victory.
Instead, McQuay fumbled and that sealed a 14-11 Stamps’ victory.
On Sunday, the Stamps and Argos will contest the 100th Grey Cup in Toronto and I have to like the Stamps’ chances after they pulled off a pair of tough playoff wins over Saskatchewan and the B.C. Lions. From start to finish, they looked like a championship team while beating the defending-champion Lions. Much as I’d love to be there at Rogers Centre, the former SkyDome, I’ll be watching the game on Kyle Storey’s big screen and I can’t wait.
It seems to me the people who slam the CFL most often are those who have never had the pleasure of having a hometown team to cheer. There’s just something about sitting in the stands watching professional football live that no TV screen can duplicate.
The crack of peanuts in the shell. The hiss of a cowgirl urging her touchdown horse to break into a gallop down the sideline at McMahon right after the Stamps scored. The resonating sound of the vuvuzela, those annoying plastic horns. And the joy of tasting a sip of spiked coffee we’d snuck past the guards to chase the chill of those fall afternoons. All memories I’d love to refresh. If only Prince George had a CFL team.
How many times have you tuned in the high and mighty four-down NFL, only to be put to sleep by running play after running play when the teams decide passing attempts are too risky. In the pass-happy CFL, teams don’t mind taking a few risks. And yes, some teams do have quality running games.
Way too often in the NFL, with three minutes left in a one-point game, you pretty much know it’s over. The clock just keeps running and there’s no action on the field.
Boring! They should take a lesson from the CFL and make the teams play out the clock.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen two or three lead changes in the dying minutes of game played in Canada, the way it was meant to be played. The No Fun League just doesn’t get it. If you want a close final, watch the CFL. Six of the last eight Grey Cups have been decided by one touchdown or less.
I’ll admit I hate the CFL’s no-yards rule on punt returns. There’s just something about watching the ball bounce off the turf deep into the receiving team’s end and then seeing the red penalty flag drop. It doesn’t seem right to ask a 250-pound tackler to give up five yards to his opponent before he mashes his face into the turf.
I don’t like the fact the CFL rewards failure on missed field goal attempts with single points. But I do like the fact punts can sail into the end zone for single points. Sometimes what happens is it turns into a game of yards, a kicking game we used to play as kids in the park. Wherever you catch the ball, that’s where you punt it out until you get your opponent backed across his own goal line. The threat of the punt single when the game is on the line often leads to a last-ditch effort to run out of the end zone or a panic punt the other way and that creates excitement the NFL does not comprehend. They do understand fair catches, a lame thrill-killing rule to protect those poor NFL punt returners.
Unlike most Grey Cups, Super Bowls are usually Super Bores. And that’s not just talking about the game. Just look at the trophy that goes to the NFL champions. Sure it’s named after a legend, Vince Lombardi, but how much imagination did it take to come up with that solid silver football. You don’t see that trophy being passed around for celebratory sips of champagne. No baby has ever tried to climb inside that so-called “bowl.”
Now the Grey Cup, well there’s a trophy. It started in 1909 and ever since, that classy silver mug has bonded Canadians in a way NFL pundits will never understand.
The CFL doesn’t offer players the milliondollar contracts the flabby NFL does, but it does provide six months employment for those talented enough to play pro ball the Canadian way, and that guy could well be your next-door neighbour. Just ask any player in the Prince George Minor Football Association how they’d feel if there was no CFL and you know how they’d react. It’s still a faraway dream for most of them and probably will remain that way for their entire football careers, but why not help support that dream? Ever heard of Remi Trudel or Matt Pearce? Both are Prince George guys who made their mark in the CFL. You can’t tell them this country would be better off if the CFL died.
Now homebrews Jordan Botel and Brandon Deschamps are chasing their pro dreams, leading the pack as rushers in the CIS. Who knows, they might be the next Andrew Harris, Botel’s former teammate on the Vancouver Island Raiders junior squad, a perennial powerhouse team that just happens to be led by coach Matt Blokker, another PG guy.
Sure they hit harder south of the border, the receivers have to be better to catch with both feet down on a smaller field and the running backs and quarterbacks all have to have more talent than their CFL counterparts to keep their jobs when there are so many more players to choose from. But does that make it a better game? I’m certainly not convinced and I’ll continue to support the CFL, not because I’m Radically Canadian, or even Joe Canadian.
I just love our game.