• Victor Schukov

Monday, November 23, 2009

A Canadian anachronism

posted by Victor Schukov at 5h19

I was sitting in a plane heading for Green Bay, Wisconsin, and an obviously athletic fellow next to me was sporting so many tattoos on his arms that the designs were practically spilling onto his armrests. He was watching a National Football League DVD on his laptop when a passenger walked by and said to him, “Good luck in the game, Al.”

Al didn’t say anything.

Then I politely asked, “Excuse me, but do you play for the Green Bay Packers?”

He looked at me like I was about to rob him and rudely replied, “Why?”

“I love football, but I’m from Canada and I don’t know the NFL players.”

He stared blankly at me, like, how could I not know who he was. Then, in order to avoid any further conversation, he answered no and coldly went back to his laptop.

When I got back home, I Googled the Packer roster and found my “cheerful friend.”

In 2007, Al Harris, a 12-year veteran of the NFL, signed a two-year contract extension with the Packers. The deal was a $4.5-million add-on to the five-year, $18.7-million extension that Harris signed in 2004, a contract that included about $7 million in guarantees.

I guess he was too rich and full of himself to chat with someone below him and above the Harper/Obama border.

In contrast to that encounter, I remember once standing in line at a Lafleurs french fry joint when I noticed Larry Smith, the former Montreal Alouette running back who at the time was the president of the Canadian Football League. He was just in front of me. Larry spoke with me as if we were old high school buddies. I have since had many chance, cheerful chats with CFL football players in such places as supermarkets and street corners.

So, what’s the difference between my pal Al and the CFL?

The salary cap on a CFL team is $4.2 million. Al can afford to support two of our modest league’s teams all on his own. The starting salary of a CFL rookie is no more than $40,000.  (I once had lunch with an NFL referee who made more than that on one Super Bowl game, plus he garnered a $5,000 diamond-studded ring.)

I suppose lots of money can make a player forget that he eats, sleeps and you-know-whats like everyone else.

Football is arguably the cruelest team sport when it comes to playing longevity. Most professionals last only a few years, and CFL players need to have a job waiting “on the sidelines” to help pay the bills and have a career after football. Many suffer arthritis.

And if you are blessed with the skills to rise to a rare level in professional sport, you should not treat fans like they were a nuisance.

And many CFL players are spiritual. I once attended a Grey Cup Breakfast in Montreal and the place was packed with players who were devout Christians. Before every game at Molson Stadium, local Pastor Tom Paul leads both teams in a group prayer that no one is hurt, that everyone plays fair and that there is respect for your opponent.

Our humble 8-team CFL is an anachronism in modern sports. Players are respectful of each other (and their fans,) and you can see it on the field after many plays. Contrast that to National Hockey League fights, a disgusting display by players who are, in fact, all millionaires. (We have heard plenty of stories about how down-to-earth were such underpaid stars as Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe.)

In keeping with names like the Super Bowl and the World Series, I fully expect the American corporations to one day rename the Stanley Cup to The Entire Galaxy Chalice.

Yes, money corrupts and, in the case of professional athletes, the egos are magnified in their own deluded self-important perceptions to the extent that they actually believe that they are comparable in stature to movie stars.  (Don’t get me started on Hollywood types.)

The Grey Cup (nee 1909) is North America’s oldest team sports trophy, compared with the Super Bowl (aka The Super Bore) started in 1967 by the NFL (which dates back to 1920.) The lack of financial hype has thankfully and remarkably kept our game at its original level of integrity.

I hope we never lose the charm of our little Canadian game. It is, in fact, an historical institution, a blue-collar club unchanged from its very beginnings when all players treated fans as if they were family.

The CFL is a family, tight-knit. Bigger is not better. Humbleness, community spirit, love of the game and fan appreciation thrives in our  Canadian Football League.

We should remember that on Grey Cup day.