As Omicron’s shadow is cast longer and deeper, one can’t help but marvel at the pandemic’s pall and pace. Medical science says that the virus mutates spontaneously, yet, I’d label the zeal with which it leapfrogs the vax more precisely as malicious.
Anyone else take a peek to see what Greek letters follow Alpha, Delta and Omicron? I suspect that the latter’s similar to that “L-M-N-O-P” item of the English alphabet, meaning we’re perilously nearer to Omega than we might think.
As such, with an acknowledgement of that that is, and, with a suspicion of that that might be, what a welcome reprieve, two weeks back, did Canada’s quirky Grey Cup provide.
I might’ve missed the big game too, but for having overheard a 70-something couple mentioning meat loaf as a Grey Cup tradition, earlier that day. I smiled to myself seeing their Swanson TV dinners with the Leaf game the night before.
Conversely, the Superbowl’s next date is proclaimed the instant the current game expires, and it’s known then from Nome to Norway and Nigeria and all points in between. Given the CFL’s ever-tenuous state, there’s a tendency to timidity when the league sets its championship date.
Still, I’ll take the Grey Cup over the sensationalized Superbowl any day. How couldn’t one, given the CFL’s lovable ludicrousness my daughters might call cute. I mean, c’mon, there’s two 50-yard-lines with a no-man’s land between them that rivals that notorious one in Korea. For cryin’ out loud, it’s like two centre-ice red lines on a hockey rink!
I think there’s only eight or nine teams, though this is really confusing, as the fact of the matter is, two of the league’s teams had the same name (Ottawa and Saskatchewan Roughriders) forever, the primary matter that Meech Lake left unamended.
Moreover, sometimes Halifax’s counted, and sometimes it’s not; it depends on who’s the harbour city’s mayor. Each of the teams plays 11 games or so, spaced with three weeks between them so as to maintain a fervour of interest through a season that runs from mid-May through to Christmas.
Stranger still, I swear that there’s only a half-dozen head coaches between them, with the firm of Lancaster, Buono, and Matthews, hopping province to province in between games.
How odd, as well, are the league’s silly stadiums, a number of which have odd gaps in their corners, through which one can catch a glimpse of some guy in the suburbs cutting his grass in June and/or raking his leaves in October.
The fields are so wide – these little aircraft carriers on the prairie – it’s conceivable that the eastern and western semi-finals could be played width-wise, and, simultaneously in the same venue.
Maybe it’s just me, but the CFL game is totally confounding. It’s a series of scrums with an aim that’s even less apparent than rugby. There is the occasional pass, though typically it’s “overthrown” to the quarterback’s uncle somewhere up high in the stands, though I don’t know how, for the Canadian football’s as big as a blimp; making its American counterpart seem like a dart. In reality, all of the action appears tied to the two punters, busier than the proverbial one-legged chap in the ass-kicking contest.
And, please, what’s with that “no-yards” rule? It’s as if all the players’ mothers are on the sideline admonishing them to “play nice” through the entire game.
The CFL’ers seem older, rounder, and nicer than the NFL’ers, and I suspect that sometimes they’re the players’ fathers filling in for sons who have gone back to the farm to help with the harvest. Whereas the NFL’s game-day officials are sufficiently chiselled to suit-up and play, in Canada, these “umpires” look like rumpled librarians.
Anyway, I hear the name “Noel Prefontaine” called, as I have with every broadcast I’ve viewed since 1965, confirming we’ve a game. Soon enough, it’s 4-0 for the Ticats, looking quite cool in their killer-bee outfits, while the Blue Bombers, in an uninspiring style that’s retro, though unintentionally so, decidedly, do not.
Now, beyond the three points for the field goal, the source of the fourth point entirely eludes me, though it could be a Hufnagel, awarded randomly for participation, or a particularly fine effort.
So, all’s going well as the first-half winds down with hometown Hamilton ahead by a hair. With the promise of some rousing halftime renditions from Steeltown’s Arkells, they’re sure to kill it, and boy do they ever. Whatever possessed them to open with back-to-back, slow-sappers that instantaneously burst the buoyant atmosphere, and the Ticats’ momentum with it, shall forever bewilder.
Apparently, the concession stands’ beer sales then slowed to a trickle, while every tailgater’s hangover fast-forwarded from four-in-the-morning all the way to the fourth quarter.
Sure enough, the Bombers soon tie-up the game, and shortly thereafter take the lead on a surprise ‘Garney-Henley,’ that catches Hamilton off-guard. Winnipeg then intercepts the Ticats’ last ditch ‘O’Billovich,’ and hang-on for the win. Two regally red RCMPs then tussle over the teacup-of-a-trophy that’s a replica of the one routinely jammed onto Barney Rubble’s head.
I contemplate on what might have been, while recalling Paul McCartney’s half-time show at Superbowl XXXIX, when he crammed four, up-tempo rousers – with the energy of Jerry Lee Lewis lead-singing with The Clash – when the standard was three. So stellar was his performance, compared to the blur of ballet and the synchronized swimming that’s normally the fare, that they now call him “Sir.”
Winnipeg’s sure to repeat next November should nearly native-son, Neil Young, be booked for that date.
