Matthew Cauz
CFL.ca
Let’s talk about hate. Not the evil personal kind, not the one where you would get in trouble from your parents for saying you “hated” someone. I’m talking about “sports hate”. The kind of emotion that drives ratings through the roof and brings over the casual fan.
Hate sells.
Better than watching a great team realizing its destiny or your classic David vs. Goliath storyline, sports hate, at its highest level, will always incite the highest level of emotional response.
Think about the Miami Heat, the dream team. The NBA (remember them?) had its best season for ratings and overall awareness because of the unholy trinity between Wade, Bosh and James. The moment James announced he was taking his talents to South Beach they immediately became the most despised team in North America and were ratings gold. It took Lebron less than 10 syllables to go from beloved to reviled.
With the B.C. Lions at home hosting the Grey Cup I couldn’t help but think about the idea of sports hate at its zenith.
How can anyone not remember in 1994 when the Lions were taking on the Baltimore CFLers/Football Club/Stallions? (By the way I am not going into the history of the franchises name. For the sake of this article I’m using “Stallions”. Yes it is not historically accurate but I refuse to write “CFLers” one more time.)
Was anyone rooting for the Stallions in that game? I imagine even the most ardent Stampeder or Eskimo fans had to jump on board Dave Ritchie’s Lions.
For anyone who wasn’t a fan back then, let me take you back to November 27th 1994 a time before everyone had a cell phone, the internet was fairly unknown and the OJ Simpson case was barely underway.
For CFL fans the Baltimore Stallions were the Miami Heat, they were the evil empire. 1994 was the second year of US expansion into the league with three more Yankee teams jumping on board, the Las Vegas Posse, the Shreveport Pirates and the Baltimore Stallions.
Because they were exempt from the Canadian ratio rules, the Stallions defence was made up of entirely American players, so during the Grey Cup you had one overriding storyline above all others: Canada vs. America.
With apologies to the ’72 Summit Series team and all evil Cold War Russians, nobody makes a better villain than the U.S of A. They win the Gold medal for riling us up. Maybe it’s because we have a chip on our shoulder when it comes to our big brother neighbours to the south but nothing upsets Canadian sports fans like losing to an American at any sports we perceive as our own.
The ’94 Grey Cup marked the first time the Championship would have a Canada vs. US flavour. We couldn’t allow the Americans to beat us at our own game with a squad almost devoid of our own home grown talent.
This game almost felt like a referendum on the state of Canadian football. The Lions simply could not lose the Grey Cup, we couldn’t stand the idea that an American based team in its first year could waltz into the land of three down football and take away our trophy. Just like any NBA fan would have been sickened to see Lebron win a championship in his first year in Miami.
Needless to say the stakes were incredibility high going into that Grey Cup. Thankfully the game itself did not disappoint. First off the game featured the greatest running back in league history (Mike Pringle), two of the leagues greatest coaches (Ritchie and Don Matthews) and three star quarterbacks (Kent Austin, Danny McManus and Tracy Ham).
Then there was the product on the field, a tense back and forth affair that saw Ritchie pull Austin for McManus near the end of the half, several lead changes and redemption for Lui Passaglia who missed a 37-yard field goal with just over a minute left in the game, only to nail a 38 yarder as time expired giving the underdog Lions a 26-23 win.
At the time I was a first year student at McMaster watching on a crappy little TV set in the student lounge with a bunch of other students. I don’t remember anyone who was in that room with me and to be honest I can’t remember every play ‘Rain Man’ style but I do remember just how exciting and tense the game was.
I can recall Sean Millington and Cory Philpot gashing the Stallions while the Lions’ defence played inspired ball against a powerful Baltimore offensive line. I was an Argo fan first but on this day everyone was rooting for the Lions.
I’m hoping this year’s Grey Cup can provide as much entertainment on the field as there was in Vancouver 17 years ago, but I doubt this game can live up to the hype of what we saw in 1994.
That is no knock on either team, nor is it a reflection on the 2011 season as a whole. However you can’t deny that the stakes this time around aren’t nearly as high, the nation isn’t polarized to one side and even with one team brazenly throwing around the term “Swaggerville” this game does not have the same level of sports hate.
Of course I can’t remember a single Grey Cup that possessed all those elements at such an extreme level as what we saw in the 82nd Grey Cup. If you will allow me the cliché, it truly was one for the ages.
