The 101st Grey Cup game
anticipation started ramping up for me immediately after the Saskatchewan
Roughriders defeated the Calgary Stampeders by a score of 35-13in the Western
Division Final game played in Calgary on the 17th of November. That win put the
Riders in the Grey Cup game which is being hosted in Regina Regina
The “I can hardly wait” phrases
started as soon as the last seconds of the CFL’s Western Division Final game
ticked off the clock, too. Try as we might, many of us are guilty of wishing
time away with our sight so focused on a distant goal that we forget to live in
the present. The older I get the faster time seems to go, too, so I make a
determined and conscious effort to not push time forward. Regardless, it is a
very, very difficult thing to do when events of this magnitude loom only days
away. The waiting is interminable.
As luck, if one could call it that,
would have it, the weather decided to take over centre stage by bringing us
January-like weather for Grey Cup week solidifying the rest of the country’s
impression that we are in a deep freeze here in good old Sask-at-chee-wan about
eleven months of the year. A reality we stubbornly refute while acknowledging
that it’s too damn close to the truth! The nasty cold conditions seem to be
keeping our minds off of the slowness of the clock as we creep along toward the
game-time kickoff of the Roughriders impending destiny as Grey Cup Champions in
the last Championship game that will be hosted in Mosaic Stadium at Taylor
Field.
It is a well-known fact that the previous Grey
Cup parties, and week-long celebrations of the Canadian Football League’s
Championship Game in the host city of Regina Manitoba
and then a GAP and then Alberta , haw, haw,
haw).
Now, we’re at t-minus 5 hours:
31minutes: and 40…39…38…37…seconds to kick off and, as usual, the time has
seemed to have flown away from seven long days ago. I am going to leave this
article right where it is and go watch a few hours of the pre-game show and
then I’ll be back with some closing thoughts after the game. Until later…
Well, well, well…wasn’t THAT
something! WOW! The Saskatchewan Roughriders are the 2013 GREY CUP CHAMPIONS!
Again, WOW! Anyone who knows me at all will know that the following statement
is a rarity…I am speechless. And a little teary-eyed.
Of course, I cannot remain
speechless forever so on we go. I’m usually not an “I told you so” kind of guy
but let’s recall what I wrote in the September 19th edition of this
paper shall we-“I, myself, am fully optimistic that the “13th Man”
incident from the 2009 Grey Cup game will finally be vindicated in the 101st
Grey Cup Game at Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field in Regina on the 24th
of November, 2013, and that the true
“13th Man/men-women-children” will have much cause to celebrate.”
Told you so. You’re welcome.
Hours old and the whole story has
already become the stuff of legend. The freezing cold temperatures of Grey Cup
week turn, overnight, into an unbelievably glorious day with sunshine and above
zero temperatures and the Riders, despite a third quarter lull, leave little
doubt in RiderNation that they will indeed be crowned Grey Cup Champions as
they soundly defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at home in the last championship
game to be played in their historic stadium in front of an overwhelmingly
partisan green-clad home crowd. It has been over-stated and over-stated but you
just can’t make this stuff up. What a storybook ending it was.
“Talent
wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships,”-Michael Jordan
(1963-).
No comments:
Post a Comment