Tough times don’t last, but tough fans do

November 28th, 2007

The Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup game brings our fine country together like no other sporting event. Hockey has the Stanley Cup to galvanize the nation each spring, but the CFL is the one game and professional sport, with the possible exception of lacrosse, that is truly our own. It fosters a sense of regional pride like no other league in professional sports in this country.

This year’s Grey Cup game was especially endearing, because the two combatants represented the capital cities of our prairie provinces, places that are well away from the spotlight and have woefully little else to cheer about, unless you count potash, wheat and mind-numbing cold. It was refreshing to see the Saskatchewan Roughriders outlast the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in this the 95th Grey Cup, and tear the spotlight, even for one fleeting Sunday, away from the usual Canadian supercities of Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto, who all compete for the right to be gazed upon and admired as the centre of the universe. Regina and Winnipeg are not hip, or cool, or known as the places to be in Canada; but they do love their CFL.

The first time I ever visited Regina, I found myself in a downtown bar on an average Tuesday night, drinking an average beer called Pilsner. You know, the one with the cheap red and green label with the chuckwagon on it. It was the kind of bar where the jukebox was still three plays for a quarter, and a game of pool still cost 50 cents.

The man next to me was clearly a regular, and making regular trips to the bathroom. Without too much work, we were both outnumbered about six to one by bottles with red and green labels, and the talk fell easily to the CFL. It was 1995, and the Grey Cup was in Regina that year. Rider pride was hitting its stride, and the town was gearing up for a party that would be the envy of the entire country. What struck me was not the man’s civic pride, not the memorabilia dotting the walls, but the fact that CFL football was the only topic of conversation the entire night.

Happily isolated from Canada’s cultural corners, prairie towns love their football teams in a way few other cities can understand. When your jukebox only has one record in it, you might as well learn to love the song it plays. There is a saying on the prairies, that tough times don’t last, but tough people do. It might as well be the motto of the CFL fan the world over, because to love the Canadian game is to know hard times.

The game itself is a winter sport, with some of the most memorable matches played in muck, slime and snow. There have been playoff games in Regina where the wind chill clocked in at -35 Celsius. With no sugar coating life on the Canadian prairies, it is said the games to remember are played in November.

For this fan, Sunday’s dull game was still one to remember, where the middle of Canada got its day in the spotlight. As Saskatchewan won, they snapped a Grey Cup drought dating back to 1989. The only other time the Cup has gone to the Riders was 1966. It may be 20 years before they win it again, but who’s counting. The tough people will still be cheering. Suddenly, I wish I had a Pilsner.

Praise the lard... and Perk Rinds

November 21st, 2007

There was a time, a time not too long ago, that lard was banished to the health food basement, somewhere between lead paint gravy and asbestos pancakes. Not anymore. Lard is back, and gaining momentum. Quite simply, lard is rendered and clarified pig fat. The best of it comes from around a pig’s kidneys, but most of what your grandmother put into her blue-ribbon pie crust was harvested from a pig’s back; which means lard is back in a somewhat literal sense as well.

Experts are beginning to tell us that lard is a healthier alternative to hydrogenated oil, and contains mostly unsaturated fat. It’s not as good for you as a glass of water and a jog around the block with a piano strapped to your back, but, as it turns out, lard isn’t all that bad after all. It certainly is your best friend in the pan when it comes to frying chicken or fish. Take a peek in any old cookbook, and see how often the author has you melting a little lard and adding a touch to your favourite recipe. You might be surprised, just as you might be surprised to learn that the lowly pork rind is enjoying a surge in popularity.

The pork rind, or pork crackling, is the fried skin of a pig, and more and more people these days are turning to pork rinds as their snack food of choice. And why not. There are more letters in the word polyunsaturated than you will find in the list of ingredients on a bag of pork rinds—pork, lard, salt—which, for my money, classifies them as health food.

Compare that list to the ingredients in a chocolate bar, frozen pizza or tub of ice cream, and decide for yourself what might be better for you. You can find pork rinds in just about every grocery store now, and at nearly every snack counter at a highway service station or rest stop. Most often, you will find them nestled beside the energy drinks, another product whose popularity has surged by leaps and bounds in recent years. The energy drink market has exploded, and there are more brands than you can shake a stick of butter at.

An awful lot of money is being made in drinks that can give you a kick in backside, and I have personally sucked down Accelerator, Battery, Crunk, Shark, Blue Ox, Venom, Red Devil, Whoop Ass and Pimpjuice, just to name a few. Most of them are loaded down with guarana, a stimulant similar to coffee that quickens perceptions, delays sleep, impairs appetite, aids endurance, increases the heart rate, and sends you more frequently to the toilet.

My dream is to market an energy pork rind. By adding one more simple ingredient, guarana, to the holy trinity of pork, lard, and salt, I hope to invent Perk Rinds, the world’s first snack food to perk you up as it porks you up. Had too much turkey and feel a little sluggish? Try a Perk Rind. Been on the road all night, and don’t feel like driving anymore? Grab some Perk Rinds and you’ll be on your way in no time. No time for a coffee and cigarette with your bacon and hangover? Well, start your day with Perk Rinds, and you’ll be ready to take on the world.

I would be happy to meet with anyone willing to invest in such a venture—just don’t forget to bring pork rinds.

The fabulous life of Moolah

Wrestling fans were saddened the world over last week with the news that one of the all-time greats, the Fabulous Moolah, passed away at the ripe old age of 84. Although Moolah never reached the level of fame that the great showmen like Hulk Hogan and The Rock have enjoyed, she was a rare and precious gem in a world of men, maniacs and mayhem.

She was truly one of a kind. Moolah was well known as the first WWF women's champion. She held that title for an astonishing 28 years, a record for the longest title reign by an athlete in any professional sport, assuming wrestling counts. And it sure did for Moolah. Wrestling was her life.

Born Mary Lillian Ellison in 1923 in the small South Carolina community of Tookiedoo, she was the youngest of 13 siblings, and the sole girl. As if that wasn’t tough enough, she was only eight years old when her mother died. By age 10, Lillian was working on a cotton farm. Moolah’s dad tried his best to raise her, taking her to Tuesday night wrestling matches to cheer her up. It did, and she soon began to idolize champion Mildred Burke. After getting married at age 14 and giving birth to a daughter, Moolah ignored her dad’s pleas to stay home with the baby, and set out for a wrestling career of her own. By the late 1940s, she was wrestling for Mildred Burke’s husband Billy Wolfe, a top promoter of the day.

Moolah said she came up with her trademark name because she was in wrestling only for the money. By the early 1950s, she was a valet for "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, providing eye candy for the male audiences. The Fabulous Moolah won her first championship in 1956, and quickly established herself as the heir to Mildred Burke’s throne. Her first world title reign lasted over ten years, and she successfully defended the belt against the top female wrestlers in the world.

In 1972, she became the first woman to wrestle at Madison Square Garden. Thanks to her fame and engaging personality, Moolah managed to befriend some of the biggest celebrities of the day, including Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.

She even dated country music legend Hank Williams for a year.

And then along came Vince McMahon, and the WWF. When Vince expanded his WWF nationally in the 1980s, Moolah was a big part of its early success. She became the first female wrestler to enter the WWF Hall of Fame, and appeared from time to time in comedic roles on WWF broadcasts even as she entered her eighties. Her last run with the world title came when she was 76 years old.

Throughout it all, Moolah never lost her passion for the business. She loved to tell tales of life on the road, operated her own wrestling school, and shared a house for more than 40 years with an adopted daughter, Diamond Lil, a midget wrestler she trained to wrestle when Lil was 17. There will always be those who deride wrestling as fake, foolish and cartoonish, but in the world of women’s wrestling, there will always be one irrefutable legend that stands head and shoulders above the rest. She was as unforgettable as she was fabulous. She was Moolah.