Riders Victorious, Wilma Unhappy

What? What?!? The Riders won, beating Hamilton 40-23, & Wilma is not happy? What's going on?

Well, boys & girls, let me tell you.

I used to be a big hockey buff. Big. Like the biggest. HUGE even. I used to memorize stats & personal info on the players like nobody's business. I remembered everything there was to know about the game, keeping notes & watching Hockey Night in Canada faithfully {this was back in the golden, moldy, olden days before cable & satellites, BTW}. At age 12, I won the class pool by successfully picking not only the Stanley Cup winners but also the player with the winning goal. Yup, I was a big fan. Until the fights started.

Now, I know what you're going to say ~ there have always been fights in hockey. Yes, I agree. But they got bad. Very bad. So bad that the fans started expecting them. Requesting them. Attending games just to see them. It culminated when CTV came out to our dusty little one-horse town to film the local yokels senior men's hockey team for a human interest story entitled "For the Love of the Game". It was a nice little tale, following around the team captain during his "day job", into the rink where a full house, & the entire province, got to see a bench-clearing brawl.

Were they acting up for the cameras? Duh! But the best part, & by that I mean the most ridiculous part, was the fans standing on the ledge of the boards, pounding on the Plexiglas, yelling & hooting & cheering, threads of spittle shooting from their lips & landing on the blue line.
For the love of the game, indeed. I never attended another game. I never watched another game on TV. Hockey is dead to me.

Then I found football. I found the Green Machine inside of me, & jumped aboard the Rider wagon. Happiness reigned. Here was a sport I could relate to. Here was a sport that allowed enough "clean" testosterone release within the confines of play that fighting isn't necessary. It isn't needed. Plus, those butts look amazing in spandex. What? I'm married, not dead.

During the Rider game on Sunday, I saw something that made me very displeased. Fighting. In football. Where they are entitled, nay encouraged to hit each other within the confines of the game all the time. 3 players disqualified from the Riders. 1 player from Hamilton. So many penalties the batteries on the ref's mic gave up the ghost.

Up until this, I thought we've been playing pretty clean ball.

I am so disappointed in them, in their lack of discipline, in their lack of .... je ne sais quoi... mayhaps sportsmanlike conduct. I can only imagine how horse Austin was after some time in the locker room.

Surprisingly, we still have the least number of penalties in the league, but no longer have the fewest yards penalized.

All I can say is, they better shape up or ship out! I know, harsh words, but when I get mad I turn 68! I will not watch my beloved Riders turn into brawlers. If they want to go that route, they can join the WWE like all the other muscle-bound geeks with atrophied muscles in their heads. The sooner they realize that 85% of this game is mental, the better off we'll all be.

& Riderville can sleep easy once again.