The CFL’s Stupid Names
I entered this blog on CBC.ca’s CanadaWrites Contest.
With the arrival of autumn, I began thinking about football and something odd dawned on me. The NFL team in Buffalo (the Bills) has a symbol that is representative of the city’s name, not the team name! They have a buffalo on their helmet and not something a lawyer sends you.
Then I began thinking about the silliness of the names in the CFL.
The obvious absurdity is that not too long ago, the league had two teams that shared the same name. How was this possible? I don’t even want to know which team should have had the right to call themselves the ‘Roughriders,’ or ‘Rough Riders,’ if you will.
Either way, it is embarrassing. My hunch is that it is more of an afront to the fans in Saskatchewan since Ottawa is home to many shameless politicians.
Then I asked myself, ‘do the football folks in Hamilton think that Canadian football fans need a little extra explaining ?’ Why call the team the ‘Tiger-Cats?’ The ‘Tigers’ would have sufficed. It worked for the B.C. Lions. Maybe they were afraid that Newfoundlanders would mistake them for tiger sharks.
Alas, Edmonton. Good job on the alliteration. Bad job on the political correctness.
I could go on about how English Canada is familiar with an alouette mainly from the children’s song, but I do not want to raise the ire of the skylark loving football fanatics in La Belle Provence.
I’m just glad that the largest football loving city in western New York was not originally called Moose Jaw. Imagine that helmet.
You, sir, are a cretinous bivalve. Enjoy your dull, run-the-ball-3 yards / pass-the-ball-4 yards NFL with the ludicrously long play clock and embarrassingly small field.
You also have no poetic sensibility. Perhaps you are an authority on poker? Accounting? ‘Roughrider’ is wonderful word that rolls of the tongue like sweet velvet; ‘Tiger-Cat’ is so much more imaginative and powerful than mere ‘Tigers’.
I suppose imagination and difference are not in your line of interest, however. You cherish similitude and generally curry favour by mindlessly, sheepishly trailing the masses.
Well done, publish your idiocies for all to see. Bravo. May you continue in your cretinous ways for years to come.
‘CFL’s Stupid Names’ was the first hint, by the by. Very imaginative and provocative title for your…ahem…incisive commentary. Which actually told us nothing about the CFL. Bravo!