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Canwest News Service
My dad is a thief. He stole something valuable, although not rare.He stole it from a friend, the owner of the bar in Meota, our lakeside village in northwestern Saskatchewan. A hometown heist! In public!
Then he gave the boosted item to me — a treasured gift from father to eldest daughter — and I'm not giving it back to its rightful owner. (Sorry, Greg.)
It is a flag. A black Saskatchewan Roughriders flag bearing the team's green and white "S" logo — not the old-school one, but the modern version. The flag came, most likely, as a freebie in a case of Pil, and was then suspended from the ceiling in the bar, a bar which has no name.
Interior decorating at its classiest.
The flag, which is also adorned with a Pilsner logo and the beer's white bunny mascot, will not grace the walls of my apartment or dangle off my balcony in Calgary. That would just be tacky.
No. Instead, I did what any Saskatchewanian transplanted in this city would do: I fashioned the flag into a cape and wore it snowboarding at Lake Louise the day before the Riders crushed the hopes and dreams of those wimpy Calgary Stampeders to advance to tomorrow's Grey Cup battle. I'll do the same today.
It is a government-approved declaration of my lifelong citizenship in Rider Nation. "That's completely sanctioned.If you're a Saskatchewan resident, I'm not sure it's legal to snowboard without that kind of cape," said Brad Wall, leader of the Saskatchewan Party, the province's Premier, and regular Wednesday guest on a radio show where he makes weekly CFL picks.
"I pick the Riders all year," he said, rattling off a list of the province's football greats, both past and present. "I'm not going to pick against them. So far, I'm doing pretty good."
Those of us holding Saskatchewan birth certificates are purtnear legally obliged to cheer for the Roughies while wearing bunnyhugs, tossing back Pil, and reminiscing about Vi-Co. But why?
Maybe it is a subconscious celebration of our pinko roots. "One of the reasons is [because] it is a community team – it is owned by all the people in the province," said Dwain Lingenfelter, leader of Saskatchewan's NDP, and a politician who admits he has occasionally embarrassed himself after a couple of beers when playing in a band – Two Bad – at Roughrider parties.
"Every Saskatchewan person is a shareholder and proud of it," the bass guitar player said.
Ralph Goodale, the federal Liberals' lone man in Saskatchewan and an MP who will be at the game tomorrow, argues dustbowls and transfer payments explain why he is among the thousands of lunatics who have put half of a watermelon carcass on their heads and called it reasonable.
"There is this underdog mentality [in Saskatchewan that] the Roughriders have epitomized – the little guys that some of the bigger places and the richer places like to make fun of," he said. "We're fighting against bigger odds, and every so often, we not only do well, but we win!
"It is that sense of uphill struggle that in a way parallels the province's psyche and history."
As for tradition, Mr. Goodale said he will wait to see what the weather looks like on game day before deciding if he will don a watermelon helmet – the unofficial headgear of Rider Nation. It would be unbecoming of an MP, however, to sport a watermelon man-bra.
So, Dad, what say you? What makes Saskatchewanians so passionate about their team that no one batted an eye when fullback Chris Szarka, a 13-year vet with the Riders, was elected to Regina's city council last month?
"We don't have a hockey team in this province. The only other sport that we can really cheer for is curling," the common criminal said, professing his affection for Gainer the Gopher, the team's beloved mascot and the only gopher he wouldn't shoot dead.
"It is Rider Pride. Besides, it gets pretty boring here in the fall after harvest."
Perhaps idle hands are why stealing Rider gear is a Saskatchewan pastime. The Canadian Tire in North Battleford, the city closest to Meota, has a Saskatchewan Roughrider aisle — which is actually a big black wire cage under lock and key. In order to purchase Green and White merchandise – everything ranging from cheap beer koozies and Frisbees to pricier BBQ covers and lawn chairs — you have to find a sales rep.
If the Rider paraphernalia was not locked up, a rep explained to me in September, it would just walk right out the door.
I bought five Rider garden gnomes and a baby sleeper for friends and family. (Total cost: $200.04 after using a few Canadian Tire bucks I pinched from Mom and Dad). Only one gnome was in the wire cage. The sales rep had to go to the back room to get the others, where they were extra safe, and then escort me to the till to keep me honest.
One of the green and white football-carrying ceramic men went to a friend, Mike McGregor, as a 28th birthday present.
"Well, we can't put this outside," Mr. McGregor said, admiring his gift. "Someone will steal it."
National Post
