Montreal Alouettes running back Lawrence Phillips must have already been drinking out of the Grey Cup when he called it the “biggest cup in professional sports” following Sunday’s Canadian Football League championship game. While the Grey Cup may in fact hold more celebratory beverage than any other North American sports prize, in terms of prestige, it can scarcely hold a candle to such revered icons as the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the World Series trophy or the Stanley Cup. Still, the Canadian Football League occupies a unique and essential place in Canadian culture.
Canadian football will never come close to rivaling hockey in the battle for our chilly northern hearts, but the sport brings Canadians together in ways that hockey never will. At least, never again.
CFL franchises receive a degree of support from their respective communities that few other sports teams can. Financially, every team in the league has struggled at one time or another, but fan support has always brought about some kind of turnaround. Canadian cities consistently rally around their teams. Football fans in Montreal invariably cheer for the Alouettes. The same can be said for Hamilton and the Tiger Cats, for Edmonton and the Eskimos, and for Vancouver and the Lions. Virtually the only exceptions to this rule are the thousands of transplanted Saskatchewanians in Calgary who can’t shake their Rider Pride.
Next time you’re driving in Calgary, count the white horse decals on car windows. The only bumper sticker that even comes close in numbers is the omnipresent pissing Calvin.
This can’t be said about the NHL. I know Calgarians who cheer for the Avalanche, the Maple Leafs, the Canadiens, even the Oilers. Canada’s few major league basketball and baseball teams inspire no sense of loyalty at either a local or a national level.
When Canadian football fans watch the Grey Cup, they primarily do so to see some good football (whether or not they saw that last weekend is a matter for debate). If you’re cheering for a team in the championship, it’s likely either because you come from a competing city or because you have money riding on the final score.
One reason for the CFL’s unique network of support bases is its lack of superstars. While some professional sports leagues put too much emphasis on personality (I’m looking at you, NBA), the CFL has been unable to do so. If fans know the name of a player from a rival team, it’s most likely because he’s been in the league forever. That’s not so much because he’s great, but because the NFL never came calling. Danny McManus and Damon Allen are the best current examples of this phenomenon.
Lui Passaglia and Bob Cameron achieved legendary status through longevity, but they’re kickers! Kickers, by choice of position, are supposed to condemn themselves to obscurity.
In the last 12 years, the only players to achieve superstardom in the CFL outside of their own locales are Doug Flutie and Rocket Ismail, and the latter more because of the outrageous salary paid to him by Bruce McNall than because of his achievements in the league. I need not remind the reader that both those players exited the CFL for sunnier climes and a few more zeroes on the paycheque.
Sure, the Stanley Cup will always inspire more Canadian youths than will the Grey Cup. But no Canadian team has competed for the NHL championship since the Vancouver Canucks’ surprising run in 1994. The Grey Cup, on the other hand, will always be won by a Canadian team. The CFL did flirt with the United States for three years in the early ’90s, but I’m pretty sure it was drunk, and the only scar remaining is a notch in Baltimore’s bedpost that Maryland has already forgotten.
Hockey is more ingrained in our psyche, but few Canadians realize that Canadian football is not our adaptation of the American game. Canadian football and American football share common ancestors, but they evolved along separate and parallel lines.
It may be time for the CFL to take yet another leap and further solidify its place in Canadian culture. There has been talk of future expansion to Quebec City, but why stop there? Halifax might be able to support a team, or even share one with St. John’s. Maybe what the Argonauts need
is a cross-town rivalry with Mississauga. This is really pushing it, but Kamloops is a good sports town. Maybe they aren’t big enough to support a team on their own, but how about Kamloops and Prince George or Kamloops and Kelowna? Raise the Canadian quota. Guys like Dave Sapunjis and Vince Danielsen proved that you don’t have to be an import to contribute. Fans will come out to see local kids play. And who was the last Canadian quarterback to actually play as a quarterback? Bob Torrance?
I realized recently that the University of Calgary is actually an exception among Canadian universities by regularly sending players to the CFL. Canadian Interuniversity Sport athletes are no slouches, and should be given more of a chance by their homeland league.
While I’m at it, the Grey Cup could use a better half-time show: The Guess Who were a great choice last year, but Shania Twain is glamorous and phony, everything that Canada and Canadian football are not. She also sucks. Stompin’ Tom Connors screams CFL, Gordon Lightfoot would still be a vast improvement over Shania, and barring that, there’s always Rush.