GREEN PROVINCE JACKED UP TO HOLD THE WEST FINAL

EYEBROW, Sask. -- Normally, before an historic hosting such as this, it's a traditional journalistic exercise to take the temperature of the town.

But in the case of the Saskatchewan Roughriders playing host to the West Division final for the first time in 33 years, you need to take the temperature of a province.
So join me, if you will, as we make our way to and through places like Macklin, Luseland, Rosetown, Outlook, Elbow and Eyebrow on our way to cover the first first place Roughriders team in the playoffs since 1976.
First stop: Macklin.

You know you've crossed into Saskatchewan when you notice the Roughriders flag on the flag pole at the first gas station over the border. It sits on the outskirts of the place from where season ticket holders Lori and Robin Cosh and their four kids drive 500 kilometres to attend every home game.
"People from the East don't believe that," said Lori. "But lots of people from all over Saskatchewan do it."
You visit them at their Rona store where the first thing you notice is Pooh Bear and friends painted on the display window all decked in Roughriders paraphernalia.

Inside, the first items you notice for sale are not available in a normal Rona outlet. There are Roughriders souvenirs from flags to shirts to slippers to green Saskatchewan logo Christmas stockings.
The phone doesn't ring. It plays the "On Roughriders" fight song.

Lori, you may have seen on TV. She goes to the games dressed up as a nun.

She's known as Sister Saskatchewan.

"It started with people telling me I was always praying in the stands," she said.
The kids are Taylor, 14, Keifer, 11, Laine, 10, and Conner, 8.

"They're so excited about the first Western final in 33 years," she said. "It's amazing. It's huge. Our kids know that the last time we had one their mom was two."

Most games, the six go to Regina in their van.

"For the 8 p.m. games, we usually don't get home until 5 a.m. That's the great thing about playoff games. They're in the afternoon," she said.

And this time they'll be on their bus with 31 others.

"I gave my wife a bus for our 10th anniversary," said Robin. "First (anniversary) is paper. Tenth is a 'Rider bus."

The Roughriders love their fans from 500 km away so much they brought the Grey Cup here in 2007 with three players in tow.

They say they're not unique among Roughriders fans.

"There are fans from Southey, not far from here. They have a bus, too, not as big as ours but a bus for fans to go to the games," said Lori, who presents a bottle of 2008 Rider Pride-labelled Merlot and points the columnist an hour away to Luseland where she says I just have to visit Doug Walz and see Taylor Field.
Taylor Field is located in his front yard.

It features a miniature lighted field, goal posts, a Roughriders 2007 Grey Cup flag on a drilling bit goal post, a stuffed Gainer The Gopher on one 35-yard line, a miniature green Roughriders football on the other 35 and a scoreboard which reads: "Riders 56, Eskimos 3."

In 1976 in the last West Final, the score was Riders 23, Eskimos 13 in the only game in a 10-year span that Edmonton didn't make it to the Grey Cup. I was there. But I'd never heard of this Taylor Field before.
"I really deck the place out on game day and I have this siren that wails when the Riders score," said Walz, the owner of the Shop EZ grocery store who says all of Saskatchewan will stop for this game.

Walz tells me I have to make sure I go through Rosetown, about an hour and a half away, to see the water tower.

The Rosetown water tower is painted the same as a Saskatchewan helmet except it says Rosetown.
"We painted it the same year the Riders won the Cup but before they won it," said town administrator Darcy Olson when I arrived.

"It had been a bright orange. But we have so many Rider fans here we decided to paint it in Rider green. We contacted the team for permission to design a logo which looked like the Roughriders logo and they were thrilled."

Jim Hopson, the CEO, ex-Rider Roger Aldag, three players and Gainer the Gopher were here for the Christening.

As you drive through Saskatchewan you can't help but be struck by the number of Roughriders flags flying, particularly from people's porches, the number of farm buildings painted green and white and the stuff for sale, from Riders' 2010 calendars to official Saskatchewan Roughrider mints in tin boxes at small stores along the way. Like the don't blink or you'll miss it town of Eyebrow.

Always wanted to have a dispatch datelined Eyebrow, Saskatchewan.

terry.jones@sunmedia.ca