2 weeks Ago By Paul Friesen
Anyone dropping in on the prairies from another planet around this time of year would be left marvelling at the health of pro football in this country. Saskatchewan will pack the joint with 33,000-plus for the annual Labour Day weekend tilt against the Blue Bombers – the Riders’ first sellout of the season – while the rematch next weekend in Winnipeg will be the Bombers’ second consecutive full house of more than 32,000. Three-down football is as healthy as it’s ever been, right? Except it’s not.
Crowds in Regina and Winnipeg these next two weeks – all season, actually – stand out because they are anomalies. Far too many markets, including Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto and Hamilton, regularly flirt with the 20,000-fan mark, or lower. The question is why.
I asked Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea, as strong a booster of the Canadian game as you’ll find, if he had the answer. “I don’t,” he said. “Bottle it up and sell it.
” If they could, O’Shea would buy everybody a round. Except the rival Riders. They’ve been drinking in healthy amounts of fan support for years.
The last few years, Winnipeg has taken over as the league attendance leader, no doubt fuelled by a historically good team that’s made four straight trips to the Grand National Drunk. But good teams don’t necessarily translate to burgeoning crowds in other cities. So what is it about these two prairie burghs? “It’s the culture,” Willie Jefferson said.
“Sask has had a long history of having good fans. It’s not a lot of other high-end sports going on in the province, Manitoba or Saskatchewan. So they show up for the Riders from all over Saskatchewan.
And they come from everywhere in Manitoba to come to a Winnipeg Blue Bomber game.” That passion is passed down through the generations: during his three seasons with the Riders and five in Winnipeg, Jefferson has seen Bombers fans marrying Riders fans, creating families that care – one way or the other. “They have kids and the kids grow up with that rivalry,” he said.
Jefferson’s point about Winnipeg and Regina not having many other big-league sports is a valid one. It helps explain the apathy in Toronto, where the game is drowned out by the noise surrounding the Leafs, Blue Jays, Raptors and Toronto FC. It doesn’t explain why Winnipeg is so much more enthusiastic than Edmonton, Calgary or Ottawa, though.
“Winnipeg didn’t have a pro hockey team for a while,” Adam Bighill pointed out. “The Riders are the only ones in town. I think that has a lot to do with the passion.
There are some colleges in the U.S. that are absolutely huge because they don’t have pro teams.
.. so that’s part of it.
” Bighill, 35 and in his 12th CFL season, spent the first part of his career in Vancouver, where he’s encouraged by the resurgence of the Lions, the only other team drawing 30,000 or more on multiple occasions. As a leader in the players union, he has an interest in seeing the league thrive everywhere, as does every player, really, who hopes to sign another contract. His comparison of Winnipeg and Regina to college towns in the U.
S. rings true with receiver Kenny Lawler. “I guess when you’re the smaller city.
.. you always wanted to go into college towns to play, because that’s the only thing in that town,” Lawler said.
“And that means it’s going to be probably a sellout...
nice and loud. The atmosphere is going to be what you want in a game. So I really think that plays big into it.
“And they just love their football up here, too. Let’s not forget about that.” There is that, too.
A rugged game suits rugged people. After doing little outside but shovel snow and scrape ice all winter, people are ready to be outside for another kind of scrape. “It just seems the prairies love that smash-mouth, blue-collar mentality of football,” is how Bighill put it.
“It’s obviously very electric here on the prairies, but it’s growing elsewhere, too. B.C.
is definitely coming to life, which is really exciting to see. I think we’re trending the right way.” TV ratings are healthy, but nothing creates a buzz like a big crowd.
“They’re working hard,” O’Shea said of the struggling organizations. “Every franchise works hard to do their part.” The Bombers have proven one thing over the last decade: you can’t just field a crappy team and expect people to come, even in a new stadium.
Hard work combined with whatever other magic ingredients exist in Winnipeg and Saskatchewan have created the perfect CFL brew these next two weekends. Bottle it and sell it, indeed. paul.
[email protected] X: @friesensunmedia.
