"VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS WHAT iF we didn’t give a . a Grey Cup and nobody came? For starters, we'd be ahead a few million dollars worth of insurance ‘claims and police overtime. With no “-game, the slew of butt-brained foot- ball fans would be deprived of an “excuse to break windows and throw “bottles: and stones at the riot squad - the'nime of “celebrating victory” Por expressing the “frustration of “defeat”. Face. it: playing. football is a healthy ¥ way for young men to bum - off excess testosterone on a crisp: autumn aftermoon. Watching i it,- _ especially on television, is a stupe- “fying bore on par with listening to a - “lecture about semiotics or the econ- omy of Uruguay. "The Canadian game seems to have been specially devised by the :. Canada Council to prove we can be “more. boring than the Americans, even at sports. Strutridge Lesgue and in high - school, and I loved it. I loved slam- "”, Ming some guy into.a two foot deep ... "moronic analysis. “wallow of rairiy.mud on the undu- “lating badly drained fields at ° “Ambleside Park: Refs had to. be "squick’on the ‘whistle or a piled-on* player could drown. Playing offen- sive centre, I was once almost decapitated by a quick-witted line- backer who observed the ball was in play the moment I touched it - up-world” tours. Also Australian Rules because it was not on the ground, but floating on six inches of water. Even then, Id sooner have watched sloths mate than watch “professional” football and that was when the game was marginally interesting. Like most professional sports, football has been electroni- cally eviscerated by TV to the extent that a one hour game now takes more than three hours to play. NFL and CFL are just brands of the same over-cooked and over- priced turkey loaf. American foot- ball developed out of English Rugby, a rough-house mutation of soccer invented at a British private school. To this day it's said that “Soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs, while rugby is a thug’s game played by gentlemen”. Soccer games in England are char- acterized by murderous hooliganism that requires massive policing and the closure of pubs around the stadi- um. When championship rugby games are played you can drink in the stadium and peo- ple apologize for bumping your elbow. Rugby is still a fast exciting game; you can catch it on TSN if you're pre- pared to stay up or tape at all hours. - when the All-Blacks do one of their “Beat- derived from rugby, “footy”, is a test of speed and agility that ‘would quickly defrost 7 any 300 Ib. “Refrigerator Perry”. You won’t see it in prime time either. Prime time is devoted to the electronic wallpaper of pro football, a background noise for beer and B.S. You can’t miss anything since every play is instantly replayed half a dozen times with gratuitous and Football used to be an exciting : game, but you don’t sce the preat old plays anymore. Traps and reverses are mostly limited to col- ‘lege ball, where players are trying to impress pro scouts. They involve ‘too much sharp ball-handling deep “> in your own backfield and the risk NOTICE | of fumbles and turnovers, and when you're playing for somebody else's big money, you play safe. Football has often been called a metaphor for war. It's not. If it’s a metaphor for anything, it’s politics. Like professional hockey and baseball, pro ball is an electronic Circus in the classic sense of the Roman political prescription for distracting the rabble with “bread and circuses”.’ ° If the hoi polloi, the mob, the great unwashed decide to riot over a gludiatorial contest, well, at least they're not rioting over anything that might embarrass the govern- ment. When a violent and destruc- tive riot occurs after a professional athletic contest, it’s treated asa form of aggravated public miscliief. Yet when people peacefully block a logging road in defiance of a court injunction, their non-violent protest is handled like a reasonable terror- ist conspiracy and a threat to the constitution and the Justice System. 66 The Canadian game (of football) seems to have been specifically devised by the’ Canada Council to prove we | _can be more boring than the. “Americans, even at sports. 99 Somebody out there knows a lot more about down-field blocking than we've learned in all those hours of watching pro football. Editor’s Note: The above end-of- season rant from Garibaldi writer John Moore marks our resident wine/bool/adventure connoisseurs’ Jirst foray into the sports’ page. Noting recent bizarre behavior (attributed by some to the daily commute along the Sea to Sky Highway), it was decided by the ‘ editors thal it was in the best inter- est of all concerned to let John get this off his, as he would no doubt " insist, unpadded chest. INFORMATION ROP-IN The, Ministry of Transportation and Highways i is planning to construct an interchange at the intersection of Westview Drive and the Upper Levels section of — the Trans Canada Highway #1. You are invited to attend a public information drop- -in to discuss this important highway improvernent project. Bate: Wednesday, November 30, 1984 Time: 4:30 PM - 9:00 Pi Place: Larson Elementary Schoo! Gymnasium 2605 Larsen, North Vanceuver Ministry staff will be in attendance. Your comments and questions are welcome. For further information, please contact Leach Martell, Project Manager, Ministry of Transportation and Highways, 7818 - 6th Street, Burnaby, B.C. V3N 4N8, 660-8228 (telephone), 660-1826 (facsimile). 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