IT IS GREAT TO BE A RIDER FAN

Nick Miliokas, Leader-PostNovember 28, 2009

REGINA — It's only a game, in much the same way that Shakespeare was only a poet, Beethoven only a composer, Michelangelo only a painter, an interior decorator, really, albeit for a pope.

Only a game? That may be the case for other people, in other places. Not here. In this place, for these people, Canadian professional football and the Saskatchewan Roughriders are paramount, a quasi-religion replete with gods and worshippers, symbols and rituals, shrines and sacrifices, a practice repeated season after season after season for 100 years, most recently in a cathedral, the Old Grey Lady, that has seen its better days and begs now for renovation or replacement.

(The Living Skies that define the landscape have been known on occasion to unleash lightning bolts that strike with Lancasterian accuracy, plunging the stadium into darkness at the most inopportune moment. The advent of beer sales has resulted in many a self-induced blackout as well. This is frowned upon, of course, and yet the fact remains: Excess in the gladiators' arena goes back to ancient Rome; it predates face paint and melon heads by the better part of three millenia, but it connects them, also.)

Only a game? Not here, not ever, and especially not at times like this. Grey Cup Sunday approaches and the province is galvanized with excitement and anticipation, united by a franchise in a bond that even grain fields, potash mines and universal health care cannot achieve. The Roughriders are in Calgary to play the Montreal Alouettes, the juggernaut from the east, the Team of the Decade. Everything else can wait.

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The Roughriders and the CFL are special to Saskatchewan for many reasons. One of the more ironic has to do with the gross indifference that is evident elsewhere in the country. Which is to say, points east.
For example: In Toronto, in November of 1989, hours before a Grey Cup that was arguably the most dramatic and most entertaining of them all — the Roughriders' 43-40 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats — two scribblers from the Prairies, in town to cover the big game, took a taxi from their hotel to what was then called SkyDome. As the fare was being paid, the driver, a cabbie conversant in all things athletic, wanted to know: "What's going on here today?"

What's going on here today?! Well, nothing much, actually. Not a big deal, really. It's, uh, the, um, championship of Canadian professional football. Grey Cup. CFL. You've heard of them, no?

Back in those days, there were still such things as expense accounts, and so, despite a display of ignorance the scribblers found amusing, the cabbie did receive a tip. The gratuity might have been more generous, however, had he held his tongue instead of uttering that ridiculous but revealing curbside comment. It made matters worse, somehow, not better, when he followed up with an equally lame: "Who's playing?"

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Yes, gross indifference elsewhere means the Grey Cup is all the more special here. There is also the fact that the province hasn't exactly grown bored of winning league championships. They are extremely rare and therefore extremely precious.

Look at it this way: With Sunday's game pending, the franchise has failed to win the league championship in 96 of its 99 complete seasons. Elusive? Holy Grail doesn't begin to describe it. Perhaps the Grey Cup is indeed an imaginary object after all, something that exists strictly in folklore, in legend, in the province's mythology. But no, there is irrefutable evidence to the contrary, proof positive in the form of three magic rings. Engraved on these rings, individually, are the numerals 1966, 1989, 2007.

This is reason to rejoice, certainly, and yet, if the three magic rings were to be placed on the fingers of one hand, reflecting, so to speak, the entire history of the franchise at once, there would still be room for one more on the pinky, likewise for the thumb, never mind the other hand. These three rings may be precious, but they are also precious little to show for 100 years of passing, running, tackling, and kicking.

Take heart. There are signs the situation is improving, slowly but undeniably. The time span between league championships is growing shorter with each Grey Cup. It took 57 years to win the first, it was 23 years from first to second, and only 18 years from second to third. At this rate, the Roughriders will be a dynasty before the 21st century is out, and when the happy day arrives, remember that you read it here first.

What's more, with each league championship, the nightmarish image of Tony Gabriel grows smaller and smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. Eventually it will disappear forever, about the same time, actually, that the Roughriders establish their Grey Cup dynasty, because it will take nothing less than a dynasty to heal the wounds inflicted in November of 1976.

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It was in 1976, of course, that the Pass and the Catch, Clements to Gabriel, cost the Saskatchewan Roughriders a Grey Cup in the waning moments to their namesakes from Ottawa and dropkicked the franchise into the darkest period in its history. Fans who experienced that era and have lived to tell the gruesome tales are no doubt enjoying the team's current success all the more for it. Incredibly, the Roughriders, post-1976, missed the playoffs for 11 consecutive seasons.

It seems inconceivable today, but keep in mind that it wasn't Rider Nation back then, it was Chaos-by-the-Creek, distinguished not so much by Rider Pride as by the Loyal Disorder of Rider Priders, these nicknames and others rattling off the typewriter keys of a sports columnist, one Bob Hughes, who couldn't bang the copy out fast enough to keep up with the latest shenanigans, a man whose public profile in this province was second only to that of whoever happened to be occupying the premier's office at the time.

It was not unheard off back then for a Roughriders general manager to phone the Leader-Post to complain that the NFL cuts had not been listed in the sports section that day and the omission, for crying out loud, was wreaking havoc on his scouting operations. Nor was it unusual to watch a starting tailback storm off the practice field because the game plan was not to his liking, pursued by a head coach who advised him at the top of lungs to "go buy your own (friggin') team." One day, a different head coach showed up for his weekly press briefing, plopped himself down wearily in a chair behind the table, covered the microphone with both hands, and proclaimed with a smile but in a whisper: "Boy was it drunk out last night."

At various times, there were coaches who threw fits, and coaches who threw chalk, and a coach who spoke repeatedly about outhouses and lightning strikes and the stenches that ensued. There was even a chipmunk-cheeked general manager who would sit in an office decorated floor to ceiling and wall to wall with Oakland Raiders memorabilia, flash his Super Bowl ring, and inquire with a straight face where the hell the media got this Al Davis wannabe stuff.

Literally hundreds of players, homegrown and imported from down south, passed through the proverbial revolving doors. Alas, too few of them could actually play the damn game. General managers and coaches were hired to be fired. Despite many a Night of the Long Knives, the prospects appeared no less bleak the morning after. Yes, they were all unique in some way or another, these general managers and coaches. But they had one thing in common: They couldn't get the team into the playoffs.

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If, in the hearts and minds of Roughrider fans, Canadian professional football was only a game, the franchise would not have survived the Reign of Error, among other challenging periods in its roller-coaster existence. Through all of the ups and downs, on the field and off, Canadian professional football has been more than a game in Saskatchewan. It has been a way of life, and these days life is good. Very, very good.

nmiliokas@leaderpost.canwest.com