With Canada Day over and the CFL regular season starting
tomorrow, one has to take a moment to reflect and ask this serious question
— is the CFL truly Canadian? At a glance the game appears to be just a revision
of American football. As much as I love the idea of having a Canadian
Football League, I do have a few small problems with this.
Yes, our game is different, and of course better than the
American version. Be sure to point this out to any American that cares
to debate the topic. After all, we play with three downs, not four, and
our field is longer by 10 yards. Or is that metres? (If anyone knows for
sure if a Canadian football field is measured in yards or metres, please
email me and tell me. Editor's Note: It's yards. Thanks, Ian, for passing on your CFL knowledge.) Oh, and Canadian balls are bigger than American
ones. This fact is sure to impress the Americans. All in all, CFL football
is harder than NFL, therefore it is better. Remember that. Our patriotism
lies in the fact that we are not Americans, and that we burned half of
Washington in the War of 1812 (which we won, of course).
But I've been digressing. I must admit I don't watch a
lot of football, but I support the CFL. And when I say support, I mean
I'm opposed to disbanding it. It's good they decided to do away with that
crazy expansion idea and all those American teams. I mean, American teams
in the CFL, that would be like, well, Canadian teams in the NBA. Or maybe
in major league baseball. Okay, so it wouldn't be all that weird, I guess,
since we play in their leagues, and this reminds me of another tenet of
Canadian patriotism, that a Canadian team, the Blue Jays (which were mostly
Haitians and Puerto Ricans at the time, if I remember correctly) won the
World Series twice.
On the topic of leagues, the National in National Hockey
League bothers me. Not as much as Gary "lets dump tradition and make
the NHL look like basketball" Bettman's wonderful ideas (which is
a topic for another day), but which nation owns the league? Us or them?
Anybody know? I'm guessing we do, since the Cup was donated by Lord Stanley,
and Americans don't have too many lords. Of course, we don't either, not any more, but
we used to.
But back to the CFL. My biggest issue with the league are
the team names, some of which are just, well, out there. No problems with
Stampeders. Fits fine for Calgary. And the Allouettes, well, makes just
as much sense as the New York Yankees, named for a song. BC Lions are
okay, I guess, it's short for mountain lions, but there's nothing wrong with that name.
Ditto for Hamilton Tiger Cats, apart from the redundancy (Tiger Dogs anyone?).
Then it all falls apart. Toronto Argonauts. Hello? Greek mythology? Where
did this come from, and how does it fit Toronto at all? Of course, they
could have used, say Mycenaeans, or even worse, the Trojans, so we can
all be thankful. Then there's the Blue Bombers, which has even less to
do with Winnipeg than the Argos with Toronto, if that's possible. That's
minor though, when compared with the Roughriders. The name itself is bad
enough. I mean, the original rough riders were Teddy Roosevelt's regiment
in the Spanish-American war. How much less Canadian can you get, really?
And for years there were two teams named this? (Oh, wait,
Ottawa was Rough Riders while Saskatchewan was Roughriders.
Big difference there.) Who let them do this, and why weren't they shot
posthaste? Even if they were both independent club teams before joining the CFL, it's still wrong. The only other league I've ever heard of having teams with
the same name was the Soviet Elite Hockey League, or whatever it's called
now, which had several teams that called themselves Dynamo. Do we really
want to look as dumb as the Russians?
This leaves the Edmonton Eskimos. Or should that be Edmonton
Inuit? After all, a few years ago someone in Ottawa apparently decided
that there were no Eskimos, just Inuit. Apparently Eskimo is an offensive
terms. Of course, they didn't tell us all that very plainly, and I remember
wondering who these Inuit were anyway, and where did they come from? Of
course, no one told the Americans that they should rename their favourite
frozen snack to Inuit Pies. (Amusingly, Coolbrands Inc, a Canadian company,
recently bought Eskimo Pie Co.) So I guess the Eskimos had best do the
right thing, stop offending people, rename the team, and repaint that
EE logo on their helmets to EI.
Hmm, EI. Also known as Employment Insurance, which of course
we all knew better as UI, aka Unemployment Insurance. Which for those
that haven't had to collect it (i.e. aren't from the East Coast) is what
you collect when you lose your job.
So here's waiting for the day when a professional Canadian
football team takes the field with helmets bearing the inscription 'EI'.
That would be truly Canadian.
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