Argos and Ticats are no strangers to rivalries
College football has left players with appreciation for historic grudge matches
In mid October 2008, Trevor Harris stalked around the campus of Edinboro (Pa.) University with a rock in his pocket and a chip on his shoulder.
The rock was a totem all Edinboro’s football players carried with them in the week leading up to the most heated game on their schedule each season — a showdown with their main rival, Slippery Rock State University.
And the chip? It grew each time Harris’s Fighting Scots lost to The Rock, and heading into his junior year Harris was winless in two meetings with the rival located 100 kilometres down the road. He couldn’t stomach a third loss and, when his team visited Slippery Rock, Harris passed for five touchdowns in a 35-14 win.
That the victory spoiled Slippery Rock’s homecoming made it that much sweeter. And heading into the Argos’ first meeting with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats this season, which comes Monday at Tim Hortons field, the anecdote underscores that Harris and his Argos teammates understand the significance of a rivalry game, and relish the opportunity to play in one.
“There’s more chips on the table because it’s East versus East,” says Harris, the CFL’s player of the month for July. “It’s the QEW battle. It’s super important to us.”
The Argos’ social media staff has already embraced rivalry week, encouraging fans to tweet at the Ticats using the hashtag #LastTicatsGreyCup and post photos of products and pop culture icons popular in 1999, when Hamilton last won a CFL title.
The Argos and Ticats have been playing each other since 1873, the year Alexander Mackenzie took over from John A. McDonald as prime minister.
Argos defensive back Devin Smith didn’t know the depth of the competitive history between the two clubs when he signed with Toronto in January, but he quickly figured it out.
It’s not too different from the bad blood between his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin and their neighbours at the University of Minnesota. Each winter they compete over recruits and every fall they square off on the field, the winner bringing home the Paul Bunyan’s Axe trophy.
“The pro rivalries are as meaningful because the organizations have that history,” said Smith, who leads the Argos with two interceptions. “When you come into college as a freshman you’re told about the importance of the rivalry, and it’s the same thing when you come to a professional team as a rookie.”
Linebacker Greg Jones also played for a trophy named after Paul Bunyan, the prize going to the winner of the annual grudge match between his alma mater, Michigan State Spartans, and the University of Michigan Wolverines.
One year he recalls a teammate grabbing the Bunyan trophy after a tough win on the road, then holding it up and parading at midfield in front of dejected Wolverines and their bitter fans.
Jones says rivalries in college ball carry a special intensity because opposing groups of players come of age together, and can gauge their progress against each other year by year.
But midway through his second season with the Argos he says games against Hamilton are as heated as trophy games in college.
“That first week of practice (before a Ticats game), everybody was on edge,” Jones says.
“That first series, it was the most physical I’ve seen in the CFL. I just remember it being a very physical game.”