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.