My Cup runneth over

In hindsight, I really should have known.

If you're telling me I'm going to go see a football game between the British Columbia Lions and Montreal Alouettes, in the very best case scenario I'm going to be indifferent to the proposal. And, it would be safe to say, seeing those two teams at the Grey Cup in my hometown could be classified as "the very best case scenario" for said opportunity.

But here's the thing: I hate the Montreal Alouettes and I'm only mildly short of hatred for the Lions. So, when the chance to see the Grey Cup game came up months and months ago, I prayed that my team — the Winnipeg Blue Bombers — would manage to be in it. When they were eliminated from the playoffs, my indifference shot through the roof to "rather be reading Chaucer" status.

So I should have really known better that even going to my first-ever Grey Cup would be polluted by the fact that I really couldn't give a damn who won the game.

Esthetically speaking, Sunday's big game was the equivalent of an orangutang doing colour-by-numbers. Montreal QB Anthony Calvillo was below average, his counterpart Dave Dickson was marginally better and the outstanding Canadian of the game got the honour because he managed to kick six field goals, an indication of sputtering offences more than a clutch boot. When a kicker wins any type of MVP award, ... well, that says a lot, doesn't it?

On top of that, neither team spread the field much. Calvillo went deep on the first play of the game and then spent the rest of the contest dodging defensive linemen and watching his receivers drop every pass they could. (This is excluding Ben Cahoon who was actually the best offensive player on the field.) Two touchdowns were scored, both on the ground, one on a plunge. Hardly riveting theatre.

For those who have been to Winnipeg Stadium (I don't use the corporate name), then you're likely aware of the binary opposites that are the East Side and the West Side. For those who don't: One side is drunk, the other side is old, okay?

It's a mass generalization but for the sake of proving my point I am sticking with it as reality. It's a little thing I like to call Armchair Prophecy and I learned about it in first-year psych, so just roll with it.

The West Side is the old, reserved and utterly unentertaining side. Members of this side of the Stadium are known to bring seat cushions with back support, wear hats they bought at the old Osborne Stadium and — this is most important to remember — never, under any circumstances, get up out of their seats. Dieter Brock could be handing out winning lottery tickets and they wouldn't so much as budge unless they were telling him to quiet down. In fact, after the referees blew a big call (more on this later), a frustrated Alouette hurled a game ball into the stands and it caused all of five people to react to try to get it. Unbelievable.

This is the side I sat on and, with most of the seats being retained by season-ticket holders, this is the crowd with which I watched the game.

So take an indifferent me, with a crowd better suited for an elementary school Christmas recital and mix in a bad football performance, and you'll see perhaps I'm not the right guy to ask "How was the game?"

And here is where you all ask me to turn in my Canadian citizenship...

The Grey Cup did nothing for me and the more I think about it the Canadian Football League more and more isn't doing anything for me.

I still pull rabidly for the Blue Bombers, I still believe at the most basic level the CFL game is far more exciting than the NFL game and I would be utterly crushed if the league somehow went away. But there is something that has tainted it for me and I believe it's a combination of a number of variables, a few that showed up throughout the playoffs.

The putridity of the CFL referees reared its ugly head on the game's biggest stage. Head ref Jake Ireland blew down a play in which Dickenson fumbled and the Als recovered and were alone into the endzone. The most senior official in the league took six points off the board with his rash reaction in the biggest game of the year (not to mention he had arguably the worst angle, coming from behind the flow of the play while another official was facing it head on and didn't blow the play down). If Ireland believes that the player is down, let the play run and then let the video replay prove you to be right or wrong. Instead, his move costs a team six points and plays a major factor in the final outcome.

Furtherto that, the analysts on the TSN post-game acknowledged merely that it was "unfortunate" for it to happen and left it at that further adding fuel to my argument that the CFL and the networks are in some sort of cohoots with each other to never lambaste or black-mark the league with actual commentary.

You're damn right that play should be held up to considerble scrutiny and rather than the CFL admit it or, lord help us, the analysts actually disect it for what it was, everyone just brushes it off and carries on with the "isn't it fun to play football"-type dialogue. No bite and barely even any bark.

In Canadian sports we have this notion that the Grey Cup is the be all and end all of sports in this country, which it very likely is when considering the one-game urgency of it. The presentation in-stadium was very good and the "show" itself was just fine but I guess I needed (or expected) more than just a few flashing lights and a full stadium.

It is understood that Grey Cup Week is more about the lead up to the game, than the game itself. But, with that said, the experience of any football game is not about how many decibals and watts you pump into the stadium.

A great football experience doesn't include: People getting up out of their seat and sliding past you in the aisle every 10 minutes, drunks spilling beer over any and everyone in the three rows in front of them, fans leaving the stands by the hundreds at various points in the game and, most importantly, spectator indifference.

Winnipeg and the league teamed up to do all possible to make the experience a memorable one but one thing they can't control is thousands of fans standing around you who don't care about the game or who have it ingrained in their every action that it is somehow wrong to whoop it up and behave with a modicum of craziness. How very Canadian of you. (Incidentally, I'm aware that this is what Super Bowls are like live as well, so leave that analogy at home.)

I have been to great football venues and the Grey Cup is easily trumped. It's nothing the CFL can cure; the city of Winnipeg put on a marvelous show and by all accounts made the week-long event well worth the effort of those who came to the city. But if we're just talking about going to the game, then I could go through another 50 years of Grey Cup games, not attend one of them and still live contently without regret.

Perhaps it's just simple enough to say the Grey Cup is the epitomy of putting Canadian and Sport together: Always falling short of spectacular because that's way we want it.