Dave’s Football Blog

Remember when Andre Rison wanted to put that “Bad Moon Rison” nickname behind him and wanted to be known as Spiderman? Well, Toronto Argonauts receiver Arland Bruce III decided to take a step further — by actually donning a Spidey mask after scoring a touchdown.

And it only took him, what, five minutes or so to get the mask out of his uniform and put it on? Smooth. And so worth a 15-yard penalty. Dork. No wonder you’re in Canada.

(Spotted on Deadspin.)

So let me get this straight.

Canada is more than happy to participate in just about every major American sports league there is. Baseball? Sure, come on up to Toronto. Basketball? No problem. We’re happy to launch the Raptors and Grizzlies north of the border. Soccer? Hey, we’d love to have Toronto FC in MLS. Look at our crazy fans! Let’s do this in Montreal, too! We love this stuff!

But when the NFL starts making a move into Canada, suddenly, those American interlopers are trying to destroy our Canadian culture! Newspapers are up in arms! Politicians cry out that we must look out for the good for the country! PR people are producing videos like this:

Yeah! This is our league! Keep your league out of our borders, you 100-yard heathens!

You know what? I don’t see you Canadians rushing to pull all your hockey teams out of the NHL and forming your own uniquely Canadian hockey league. I don’t see you trying to build on the success of Toronto FC, the Montreal Impact and the Vancouver Whitecaps and building your own uniquely Canadian soccer league. All you have is a tri-cities championship and an association that can’t pull its head out of its arse. You’re not rushing to kick the Raptors out of Toronto, either, are you?

But no, 3-down, 110-yard football is such a vital part of your heritage, isn’t it? What would we ever do without the Grey Cup?

You’d watch the NFL, that’s what. It’s the same reason so many soccer fans who enjoy the Premier League and EURO 2008 can’t seem to get into MLS games. People want to see the best players play at the highest level, and for the gridiron game, those players aren’t in Canada. They’re in the NFL. That’s why CFL expansion into America failed in the 1990s. We don’t want minor league football in this country, and that’s what most people think the CFL is. The best CFL players almost always move south to the NFL. Most of those players played college football in the USA, anyway. It’s not like they’re switching from rugby union to rugby league or something.

Hey, here’s an idea — why don’t you dump all those Burnside Rules and go back to playing rugby union? That was your gift to America back in 1874, wasn’t it? Then Thrift Burnside came along and took some ideas from Walter Camp, and 100 years later, it constitutes Canadian culture. How fitting.

Here’s another idea — if you’re so worried about the survival of the CFL, Canada, why don’t you go round up some mounties and have them surround the Rogers Centre so that the Buffalo Bills won’t be able to get inside to play there? It won’t happen, Canada, and you know why? Canadian fans want to see the best football players in the world, too. Plus, you’re too chickenshit to build your own national leagues in other major sports. If an NFL team in Toronto destroys the CFL, then maybe the CFL isn’t good enough to stand on its own, eh?

A couple of weeks ago, those lovable scamps at Kissing Suzy Kolber lashed out at Canada for trying to lure the Buffalo Bills north of the border. The Bills, of course, struck a $78 million deal with the city of Toronto, which will allow the city to host eight Bills games at the SkyDom… uh, the Rogers Centre over the next five years.

Here’s the $78 million question, though — if Toronto falls in love with the Bills, will they abandon the Argonauts and send the Canadian Football League crashing down?

CFL commissioner Mark Cohon has already said publicly that an NFL team in Toronto would be the death knell for his 3-down, 110-yard football league. Said Cohon:

“I want to see Toronto as a prospering (CFL) franchise, which sets the bellwether for the rest of the league. I was not hired to be commissioner of a Western league.

“If you make the assumption that an NFL team would come into this market, it would cut into (the CFL’s) ad revenue, ticketing and would remove our ability to compete, as there’s a limited number of sponsorship and television money in the Canadian marketplace.”

Perhaps the real question is how important Toronto is to the CFL. If the Argos give way to the Bills, would the Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan base fall apart well? Would Montreal be too cut off from the rest of the league to allow the Alouettes to survive? Or is Cohon just being a Cassandra?

It makes sense for Toronto — a big city with a sports-crazy fan base that already has teams in the NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS — to try and lure the Bills away from Buffalo. Perhaps sports fans in Toronto think the CFL is a too much of a minor league compared to the NFL, and “Canadian-ness” might not be as important as having the best quality sports in that city.

So is this deal really the beginning of the end of the CFL? Could Canadian football survive the stampede of the Bills? Or will 3-down football up north become a relic of the 20th century?

Only in the gridiron game do players celebrate scores by spiking the football. This may be why. Ouch!

(Spotted on Deadspin.)