kudos to Bomber's org and fans
Could it be that Spec has back to back decent CFL articles? I think it goes to show he's better at the 'view from above' and talking about league wide stuff than trying to talk about the games themselves.
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CFL tests fans' loyalty
Bombers changing divisions for sixth time in 19 years
Mark Spector
National Post
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Think of a play that is intrinsically Canadian Football League. Something that couldn't possibly happen elsewhere.
We're thinking of the game-ending puntfest, where one team kicks it into the end zone, and the other punts it out. Then the first team catches the ball, and tries to boot it back in. And so on.
Now, think of a team that is innate to the league. A heart-and-soul club that sums up everything the CFL was in its heyday: open-air, cracked and crumbling double-grandstand stadiums built with last generation's tax dollars; hearty fans who fill the Thermos for a cold-weather game and blindly cheer a team that hasn't won much since players went to facemasks; a firm standing in its town as the No. 1 franchise, with a story a day in the sports pages all winter and three times that during football season.
That team is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
When the Bombers were officially shuffled into the Eastern Division after the Ottawa Renegades were euthanized this past weekend, it marked the sixth time since 1987 that the CFL mainstay has been asked to switch divisions.
Kicked to the East in 1987 when Montreal folded. Punted into the North Division in 1995 during the CFL's failed period of U.S. expansion. Hoofed back to the West in '96, when Montreal was reborn. Back into the East the following season when the Ottawa Rough Riders pulled the chute. Launched westward in 2002 when the Renegades first surfaced. And now, it's back to the Eastern Division for this ward of the CFL, with no time left on the clock in Ottawa.
And after all of that, the East is a home that might last only a season, if the league can find someone stupid enough to buy the Renegades.
"Look, nobody sees Winnipeg as an Eastern city and nobody really wants to," Bombers CEO Lyle Bauer told Ed Tait of the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. "But we're talking about football and sport ... Give our fans credit. They don't support an Eastern or a Western team per se, they support the Blue Bombers regardless of who we're playing."
In the end, Bauer has it pegged. The single point that matters most is the loyalty of Winnipeggers towards their club, a quality that never dawned on folks in Ottawa.
Winnipeg sits on the eastern border of the CFL's heartland, and it is the financial support of Blue Bomber fans -- like Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Calgary fans -- that has propped up franchises for years in the CFL's bigger markets. But when the Bombers fell more than $5-million in debt six years ago, they didn't fold or run away from their debts. They looked in the mirror, put a better product on the field, raised funds the old-fashioned way, and got the farm out of debt with back-breaking effort and community support.
Think of a play that is intrinsically Canadian Football League. Something that couldn't possibly happen elsewhere.
We're thinking of the game-ending puntfest, where one team kicks it into the end zone, and the other punts it out. Then the first team catches the ball, and tries to boot it back in. And so on.
Now, think of a team that is innate to the league. A heart-and-soul club that sums up everything the CFL was in its heyday: open-air, cracked and crumbling double-grandstand stadiums built with last generation's tax dollars; hearty fans who fill the Thermos for a cold-weather game and blindly cheer a team that hasn't won much since players went to facemasks; a firm standing in its town as the No. 1 franchise, with a story a day in the sports pages all winter and three times that during football season.
That team is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
When the Bombers were officially shuffled into the Eastern Division after the Ottawa Renegades were euthanized this past weekend, it marked the sixth time since 1987 that the CFL mainstay has been asked to switch divisions.
Kicked to the East in 1987 when Montreal folded. Punted into the North Division in 1995 during the CFL's failed period of U.S. expansion. Hoofed back to the West in '96, when Montreal was reborn. Back into the East the following season when the Ottawa Rough Riders pulled the chute. Launched westward in 2002 when the Renegades first surfaced. And now, it's back to the Eastern Division for this ward of the CFL, with no time left on the clock in Ottawa.
And after all of that, the East is a home that might last only a season, if the league can find someone stupid enough to buy the Renegades.
"Look, nobody sees Winnipeg as an Eastern city and nobody really wants to," Bombers CEO Lyle Bauer told Ed Tait of the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. "But we're talking about football and sport ... Give our fans credit. They don't support an Eastern or a Western team per se, they support the Blue Bombers regardless of who we're playing."
In the end, Bauer has it pegged. The single point that matters most is the loyalty of Winnipeggers towards their club, a quality that never dawned on folks in Ottawa.
Winnipeg sits on the eastern border of the CFL's heartland, and it is the financial support of Blue Bomber fans -- like Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Calgary fans -- that has propped up franchises for years in the CFL's bigger markets. But when the Bombers fell more than $5-million in debt six years ago, they didn't fold or run away from their debts. They looked in the mirror, put a better product on the field, raised funds the old-fashioned way, and got the farm out of debt with back-breaking effort and community support.
Meanwhile, ownership in Ottawa simply walked away from the lion's share of its financial obligations this spring. And how does the CFL repay Winnipeg upon Ottawa's demise? Well, this latest switch has rewarded an already struggling Blue Bombers team with a murderous schedule.
In a season of high hopes, with Winnipeg hosting the Grey Cup game in November, the league has presented it with a revamped schedule in which the first six games feature two each against 2005 Grey Cup finalists Edmonton and Montreal, plus two more against the reigning Eastern regular-season champs from Toronto.
It could be over before it even gets started for the Bombers this year, regardless of division. Or, as one expert there put it, "It would be a dream," if the Bombers were to go 2-4 out of the gates. [Meanwhile, six of Saskatchewan's first seven games are against the B.C. Lions or Calgary Stampeders. Thanks for your support, 'Rider fans.]
In Winnipeg, however, after a 5-13 campaign in 2005, the Bombers faithful have hardened. They are wasting little sympathy on the Renegades, and are more concerned with what kind of players their team can snap up in the expansion draft tomorrow.
Hey -- can you blame them? It's not like anyone at CFL headquarters has ever shed a tear for the Blue Bombers.
"They're there for us," Bauer marvelled of his fans. "They've supported us in the West, they've supported us in the East. They supported us in the North, they supported us back in the West again and then back in the East again. We had great traditional and geographic rivalries in the West for a long, long time. But we also developed some very significant rivalries in the East when we were there. A lot of people don't like us in the East .... We represented the East in the Grey Cup five times and I don't think a lot of people out there like that.
"The rivalry we had with Montreal, that's just a switch we have to throw -- especially with the guy we hired [new head coach Doug Berry, a former Montreal offensive co-ordinator]. Many of our fans grew up knowing the Bombers as an Eastern Division team. At the same time, we still have a home-and-home series with all the West teams so we can still maintain those rivalries. So, with some good marketing, some luck and improved play we could do all right."
They will do all right. Because no team has been punted around the CFL more than Winnipeg.
After a while, you learn to land on your feet.
© National Post 2006
[/kudos]
- - -
CFL tests fans' loyalty
Bombers changing divisions for sixth time in 19 years
Mark Spector
National Post
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Think of a play that is intrinsically Canadian Football League. Something that couldn't possibly happen elsewhere.
We're thinking of the game-ending puntfest, where one team kicks it into the end zone, and the other punts it out. Then the first team catches the ball, and tries to boot it back in. And so on.
Now, think of a team that is innate to the league. A heart-and-soul club that sums up everything the CFL was in its heyday: open-air, cracked and crumbling double-grandstand stadiums built with last generation's tax dollars; hearty fans who fill the Thermos for a cold-weather game and blindly cheer a team that hasn't won much since players went to facemasks; a firm standing in its town as the No. 1 franchise, with a story a day in the sports pages all winter and three times that during football season.
That team is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
When the Bombers were officially shuffled into the Eastern Division after the Ottawa Renegades were euthanized this past weekend, it marked the sixth time since 1987 that the CFL mainstay has been asked to switch divisions.
Kicked to the East in 1987 when Montreal folded. Punted into the North Division in 1995 during the CFL's failed period of U.S. expansion. Hoofed back to the West in '96, when Montreal was reborn. Back into the East the following season when the Ottawa Rough Riders pulled the chute. Launched westward in 2002 when the Renegades first surfaced. And now, it's back to the Eastern Division for this ward of the CFL, with no time left on the clock in Ottawa.
And after all of that, the East is a home that might last only a season, if the league can find someone stupid enough to buy the Renegades.
"Look, nobody sees Winnipeg as an Eastern city and nobody really wants to," Bombers CEO Lyle Bauer told Ed Tait of the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. "But we're talking about football and sport ... Give our fans credit. They don't support an Eastern or a Western team per se, they support the Blue Bombers regardless of who we're playing."
In the end, Bauer has it pegged. The single point that matters most is the loyalty of Winnipeggers towards their club, a quality that never dawned on folks in Ottawa.
Winnipeg sits on the eastern border of the CFL's heartland, and it is the financial support of Blue Bomber fans -- like Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Calgary fans -- that has propped up franchises for years in the CFL's bigger markets. But when the Bombers fell more than $5-million in debt six years ago, they didn't fold or run away from their debts. They looked in the mirror, put a better product on the field, raised funds the old-fashioned way, and got the farm out of debt with back-breaking effort and community support.
Think of a play that is intrinsically Canadian Football League. Something that couldn't possibly happen elsewhere.
We're thinking of the game-ending puntfest, where one team kicks it into the end zone, and the other punts it out. Then the first team catches the ball, and tries to boot it back in. And so on.
Now, think of a team that is innate to the league. A heart-and-soul club that sums up everything the CFL was in its heyday: open-air, cracked and crumbling double-grandstand stadiums built with last generation's tax dollars; hearty fans who fill the Thermos for a cold-weather game and blindly cheer a team that hasn't won much since players went to facemasks; a firm standing in its town as the No. 1 franchise, with a story a day in the sports pages all winter and three times that during football season.
That team is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
When the Bombers were officially shuffled into the Eastern Division after the Ottawa Renegades were euthanized this past weekend, it marked the sixth time since 1987 that the CFL mainstay has been asked to switch divisions.
Kicked to the East in 1987 when Montreal folded. Punted into the North Division in 1995 during the CFL's failed period of U.S. expansion. Hoofed back to the West in '96, when Montreal was reborn. Back into the East the following season when the Ottawa Rough Riders pulled the chute. Launched westward in 2002 when the Renegades first surfaced. And now, it's back to the Eastern Division for this ward of the CFL, with no time left on the clock in Ottawa.
And after all of that, the East is a home that might last only a season, if the league can find someone stupid enough to buy the Renegades.
"Look, nobody sees Winnipeg as an Eastern city and nobody really wants to," Bombers CEO Lyle Bauer told Ed Tait of the Winnipeg Free Press yesterday. "But we're talking about football and sport ... Give our fans credit. They don't support an Eastern or a Western team per se, they support the Blue Bombers regardless of who we're playing."
In the end, Bauer has it pegged. The single point that matters most is the loyalty of Winnipeggers towards their club, a quality that never dawned on folks in Ottawa.
Winnipeg sits on the eastern border of the CFL's heartland, and it is the financial support of Blue Bomber fans -- like Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Calgary fans -- that has propped up franchises for years in the CFL's bigger markets. But when the Bombers fell more than $5-million in debt six years ago, they didn't fold or run away from their debts. They looked in the mirror, put a better product on the field, raised funds the old-fashioned way, and got the farm out of debt with back-breaking effort and community support.
Meanwhile, ownership in Ottawa simply walked away from the lion's share of its financial obligations this spring. And how does the CFL repay Winnipeg upon Ottawa's demise? Well, this latest switch has rewarded an already struggling Blue Bombers team with a murderous schedule.
In a season of high hopes, with Winnipeg hosting the Grey Cup game in November, the league has presented it with a revamped schedule in which the first six games feature two each against 2005 Grey Cup finalists Edmonton and Montreal, plus two more against the reigning Eastern regular-season champs from Toronto.
It could be over before it even gets started for the Bombers this year, regardless of division. Or, as one expert there put it, "It would be a dream," if the Bombers were to go 2-4 out of the gates. [Meanwhile, six of Saskatchewan's first seven games are against the B.C. Lions or Calgary Stampeders. Thanks for your support, 'Rider fans.]
In Winnipeg, however, after a 5-13 campaign in 2005, the Bombers faithful have hardened. They are wasting little sympathy on the Renegades, and are more concerned with what kind of players their team can snap up in the expansion draft tomorrow.
Hey -- can you blame them? It's not like anyone at CFL headquarters has ever shed a tear for the Blue Bombers.
"They're there for us," Bauer marvelled of his fans. "They've supported us in the West, they've supported us in the East. They supported us in the North, they supported us back in the West again and then back in the East again. We had great traditional and geographic rivalries in the West for a long, long time. But we also developed some very significant rivalries in the East when we were there. A lot of people don't like us in the East .... We represented the East in the Grey Cup five times and I don't think a lot of people out there like that.
"The rivalry we had with Montreal, that's just a switch we have to throw -- especially with the guy we hired [new head coach Doug Berry, a former Montreal offensive co-ordinator]. Many of our fans grew up knowing the Bombers as an Eastern Division team. At the same time, we still have a home-and-home series with all the West teams so we can still maintain those rivalries. So, with some good marketing, some luck and improved play we could do all right."
They will do all right. Because no team has been punted around the CFL more than Winnipeg.
After a while, you learn to land on your feet.
© National Post 2006
[/kudos]
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