Grey Cup Excellence

 There was a time when my son and I would be making a Shaw's run on Grey Cup Sunday and we'd make some comment, parodying the mad grocery store rush for Super Bowl Sunday, that everyone must have done their shopping early. And then I began my years-long quest to bring the beauty of the CFL to my friends, although I suspect they might consider it an annual ritualistic dragooning. Now that I've brought nineteen different people to CFL games, in six different Canadian cities, the Grey Cup is a thing. For a couple years my excellent friend Craig would host an annual Grey Cup soiree (one time I drove across the blizzard in a wretched storm to buy a motherlode of TimBits for the game). This year I think  an evolving group of folks watched several games together, topped off by Kevin (who, despite his protestations, is a huge CFL fan) hosting a Grey Cup party. It was an Event of Excellence, as one might assume (and not simply because we saw a rouge). The Alouettes are our hometown team, and the Roughriders are not one of my four favorite CFL teams (although after this summer's Saskatchewan/Winnipeg doubleheader I might change my mind), but I was quite happy with the Roughriders victory.

I brought a wealth of CFL swag to celebrate the combatants: the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Montreal Alouettes.

Erik and Kevin, two CFL game veterans, were enthusiastic participants.

Marcelle and her brother Roger are consistent attendees of Lake Monster games, but have taken blood oaths to attend their first Alouettes game next summer.

Can a game start better than 1-0? It's a testament to my success in winning over my friends to the CFL that immediately after the scoring of the rouge I received multiple texts from around the country with one word: "Rouge!!"

And then there's that magic moment when the Mounties bring down the Grey Cup. It says something wonderful about Canada that one of the Mounties was a Sikh, and that everyone, quite rightly, just viewed it as another day in the week. Sadly, in Trump's America, the racist, xenophobic rants would start firing up the social media hellscape.

And Kevin, who, as we all know, is a great cook, whipped up some killer poutine. I'm already sad that I won't be in-country for next year's Grey Cup (unless I make the most amazing secret mad dash over, because, well, it's the Grey Cup FFS).