Please welcome yooooouuuurrrrrr Ottawaaaaaaa......
When we first heard that one of the groups hoping to revive the CFL in Ottawa paid $100,000 to buy the Rough Riders name back, we were more than a little dismayed. How many times do we have to say it? Horn Chen does not exist. You just paid $100K to a ghost.
Once we cooled down a little, though, we realized there are too many arguments on either side of this debate to let it begin and end with our (ghost) man Horn. Allow us to run down a few of them.
"Rough Riders" upside:
- There's a distinct possibility that the team might bring back those absolutely ridiculous gold helmets, which feature quite possibly the greatest sports logo this side of the Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes.
- The Argonotes wouldn't have to change the lyrics to "Argos Rule the CFL" all that much. (Really, really off-topic: Would the Saskatchewan Pep Band please start to realize that either the Argonotes song or "The Toronto Argonauts Song" are the Argo Fight Songs? If we get to the Grey Cup this year and they try to pawn off a US College fight song with made up lyrics as the Argos song, I'm going to be pissed off.)
- Naturally, we have little time for CFL detractors. But in a sense we feel sorry for them: When you have a great game and a great league, it's hard to find things to harp on. So let's take it easy on all those poor bastards sitting around watching NFL preseason games and give them two teams with similar names, so they can go back to those old "25% of the teams are called the Roughriders" jokes (even if that number would now be the far more respectable 22.2%).
- Rumour has it that Dexter Manley has "Rough Riders 4Ever" tattooed somewhere on his body, and has vowed swift revenge if the Riders name isn't revived. That's good enough for us.
"Rough Riders" downside:
- Hmmm...We probably should have saved Dexter Manley for this section. (We kid. Get well soon, Dexter.)
- All of the Rough Rider-related jokes and puns have already been used. We need some new material. Just so long as they don't go with the "Ottawa Omega", which would be too awful to even joke about.
- If confused hip-hop fans turn up expecting the Ruff Ryders, and get Eric Tillman instead of DMX, things could get ugly in a hurry.
- We're not saying that 15 straight losing seasons is enough to relegate a name to the dustbins of history, but when you haven't had a winning record since 1981, a fresh start might not be the worst idea in the world.
All that being said, so long as we can watch the CFL at Frank Clair again without the stench of Steelback beer wafting over us, we'll be happy.
Rusty
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Which is very humourous to the 5% of the band that can remember that show, and completely lost on the 95% of the band that was apparently not born when it was on.