Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Are You Ready for Some Canadian Football?
Once again, football season is finally here. No, not the NCAA or the NFL, whose seasons do not begin until late August and early September, but rather the Canadian Football League, the first game of the 2015 season being a showdown tonight between the Ottawa RedBlacks and the Montréal Alouettes on ESPN2 at 6:30pm CDT. As for how I became interested in Canadian football, here is the story…
It was July of 2012 and I had just returned to Lubbock after having spent nearly two months in the United Kingdom doing historical research. The beginning of the NCAA and NFL football seasons was still several weeks away, but I noticed that there were a number of Canadian football games showing on ESPN3, so I decided to check them out. Almost instantly, I was hooked.
In contrast with American football, Canadian football uses a field that is 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, with each team fielding 12 players. As each team has only three downs (as opposed to the American four) to advance the ball, Canadian football features more passing, scoring, and more frequent lead changes. It is quite an interesting and exciting game in its own right. As for the scheduling, most games are played on Friday night and Saturday, with some Sunday games and certain special exceptions such as the first game of the season and games played on Canadian Thanksgiving in October. The playoffs conclude in late November with the Canadian Football League championship game, known as the Grey Cup.
In the late summer of 2013, while doing archival research in Ottawa, I decided to drive over to Montréal to see the Alouettes play their East Division rivals, the Toronto Argonauts (the Ottawa RedBlacks would not enter the league and begin playing until the following year). The 120-mile drive on Highway 417 (which becomes Autoroute 40 after crossing the Québec border) from Ottawa to Montréal was a memorable one. Miles and miles of forest passed by, and for much of the trip I was listening to a country music station out of Ottawa. At one point, a song by Lefty Frizzell named “Saginaw, Michigan” began playing, and my mind drifted…
I thought of my great-great-grandfather Frederic LaRoche, who left Québec in the 1880s – where the LaRoches had lived since the 1660s – to seek out a new life in America. The great northern pine forests have always had that effect upon me, dredging up some deep ancestral longing to return to the lands of my forefathers. The same feeling overcomes me whenever I visit the Pacific Northwest, where I have family both immediate and extended. I often wonder if there is, indeed, such a thing as ancestral memory. It is as if the trees are saying “you belong here,” or in the words of Tolkien, “Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!”
Upon arriving in Montréal on that late summer day in September, I parked in a garage beneath a shopping mall and then walked north to McGill University, on whose campus is Percival Molson Stadium, home of the Alouettes. Before the game got underway, I wandered around the stadium and visited the team gift shop. But just as I began making my way to my seat, I was intercepted by three petite, beautiful young women. One of whom handed me something. I figured it must be an advertisement for some local business, but lo and behold, it was a calendar, and the three young women turned out to be Montréal Alouettes cheerleaders! I chatted them up for a while, after first having to say “Je regrette. Je ne parle pas français.” Next time I’m there, perhaps I should ask Cousin Annie for some French lessons and some backstage passes. Heh.
Anyway, the game was an exciting one. I had been hoping that I would get to see the legendary Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo play, but he was out with a concussion injury and would retire after the season was over. The game was a relatively high scoring contest, but the Alouettes lost by a score of 37-30 after a late, game-tying touchdown was waved off when an Alouettes receiver stepped out of bounds at the eight-yard line. C’est la vie.
There is nothing quite like the thrill of watching a competitive sporting event, be it professional basketball, college football, or Major League Baseball. Such memories are to be treasured forever. If you have the time, check out tonight’s game. And go Alouettes!
Published in Sports
I’m reminded of an ancient Chinese proverb: “The older the ginger, the hotter it is.”
Update: The game referenced in my original post was last night. There is another CFL game on tonight (June 26) on ESPN2 at 8:00pm CDT between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and the Calgary Stampeders.
If any editor is reading this, could you please add the above to the end of my original post? Thanks.
Won’t they run you out of Texas for promoting that Frenchified le futbol? But I guess the pic of the cheerleader will get you off the hook.
Oddly enough, there actually was a CFL team in Texas at one time: the San Antonio Texans.
Dang. My silly brain registered that as “Bill Murray” and I got all excited.
Now that’s a good team name!
I know nothing about Canadian football. I clicked read more expecting to see cheerleaders in parkas. Nice surprise.
Great post Mike! May have to flip to the ‘deuce’ and catch a game.
BTW You forgot the most thrilling of all thrilling sport thrillers: NHL!
Signed,
Proud hockey Dad
You’d think I could find some Edmonton Eskimos cheerleaders in parkas, but the closest I could find were three drenched in rain.
But here is a SeaGal (Seattle Seahawks cheerleader) in a parka (sort of):
Yep, I should definitely pay more attention to the NHL.
Maybe parkas ain’t so bad after all.
Indeed.
Start with the real hockey teams!
Montréal Canadiens Ice Girls. Ooh la la!
I had Alouette’s season tickets their first year at Molson stadium, and it was great. I was in my last year at McGill, and lived directly across the street from the stadium. Goal line tickets, second row, and they cost something like $150 for the season (prices have gone up since then). It’s odd to remember it now, but at that point, Calvillo got booed when he came on the field, because it meant that Tracy Ham was stinking up the joint. Still, the Als won most of their games that year on the back of a massive O-Line, and some guy named Pringle who ran for 2000 yards that year. The only inconvenience with the tickets was that down so low, you couldn’t really see much when the action was at the other end of the field.
At least the cheerleaders were stationed right in front of us. (in keeping with the sentiments of this conversation)
I knew this post was just an excuse to put up cheerleader pictures. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Très élégant pour une pom-pom girl.
Yep, that’s why I had endzone seats when I was there!
I have no idea what you’re talking about. ;-)
Oui, oui, très magnifique!
Calgary or bust!
Bust. Definitely bust.
Mike s my first “follow” – cheerleaders and also a strong Texas Nationalist. Perhaps we were separated at birth?
Maybe so! Similar taste in the fairer sex would be a reliable indicator, I’d think.
It can’t be a coincidence that the season opens the night of the NHL draft, a few weeks after the end of the NHL season and concludes just as things start to get interesting in the NHL, a month into the season.
I remember they tried to put together an entire American Division of the CFL, with a lot of deep south franchises, and the flagship being a Baltimore franchise. Then the NFL Browns moved in, became the Ravens and that was the end of that.
My favorite thing about the league was in the 80’s when it seemed like they had approximately 6 franchises called the Rough Riders.
Yep, I remember the American franchises. In addition to the San Antonio Texans (who were previously known as the Sacramento Gold Miners), there were the Baltimore Stallions, Birmingham Barracudas, Las Vegas Posse, Memphis Mad Dogs, and Shreveport Pirates.
Of all those teams, only the Baltimore Stallions survived. In 1996, the Stallions moved to Montréal and became the latest iteration of the Montréal Alouettes, which had previously existed from 1946 to 1981 and again in 1986. From 1982 to 1985 the team was known as the Montréal Concordes.
There’s a reason for the Canadian Football League having once had two similarly-named teams (the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders). Originally, there were two football leagues in Canada: the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union and the Western Interprovincial Football Union. The Ottawa Rough Riders were a member of the former and the Saskatchewan Roughriders a member of the latter. When the two leagues were eventually merged under the auspices of the CFL, the Rough Riders and Roughriders retained their original names.
However, in 1996 the Ottawa Rough Riders went bankrupt, and the Saskatchewan franchise gained the sole copyright to the Rough Riders/Roughriders name. And they have refused to permit the two subsequent Ottawa franchises to regain use of it. That explains the names of both the later franchises: the Ottawa Renegades (2002-05) and now the Ottawa RedBlacks (2014-present).