Well... that game was a touch ugly last night.  But we here at boatmenblog encourage you to get your head out of the oven and look at all the positives from last night's game in Montreal:

• If you were flipping channels, you got to see not 1 but 2 tributes to the 1992-93 Toronto Blue Jays as the Argos posted 0 points. A feat not accomplished since September 1992.
• It finally erased the memories of that 2006 game in Montreal where John "two thumbs up" Williams started at RB and Spergon Wynn spent most of the game trying to find Shockmain Davis. Damn it, I just brought all of those memories back.  My apologies
• Didn't hear that annoying "fait du bruit" call as much
• Heard a French-Canadian PA announcer say Pickett about 5 or 6 times
• Bart Andrus' hair.... still in place
• Team status during the national anthem... disciplined.  Very disciplined.  Now they may have had to run the only receiver the team's had in the past 5 years out the door in order to get that way, but look at the resul.... No, no.  We're going to stay positive here.

Is there any more room in that oven?

One of the things we love about David Cynamon - and there are many - is that, in keeping with the random burst of Andrew WK that piped in through the loud speakers last night, he's a man who appreciates the value of partying hard. And so we especially enjoyed his summation of the Argos' debacle of a home opener:

"It's a major disappointment. I mean, it's like hosting a party at your home, you've got everything lined up, everybody is showing up, weather is great and you forgot to bring the alcohol, and everybody goes home disappointed."

We've been to a party at David Cynamon's home, so we can attest that this is a man who would never, ever forget to provide alcohol. (Nor would he forget to scantily clad women lounging on ice sculptures, but we digress). That being said, what we witnessed last night was worse than going to a party without alchohol. It was like going to a party where the only alcohol turns out to be Steelback.

In other words, we didn't just go home disappointed. We went home confused, angry and slightly nauseous, knowing that we'd feel worse before we felt better. Even the absence of a certain Steelback founder himself wasn't enough to make up for that.

We know we shouldn't have been as amused by this as we were. And it's probably not quite as funny in retrospect as it was when it was actually happening, since watching on Youtube isn't quite the same as joining 30,000 other fans in slowly realizing how it's going to end. But when you're mired in a 4-game losing streak, you have to take your bright spots where you can get them. And so, in case you missed it, allow us to present to you the unequivocal highlight of the Argos' last home game.

 

Shame on you. Shame on all of you. This man sung his heart out for you last night. His version of O Canada? Splendiferous. His take on My Girl? Scrumtrilescent. His cover of the Monkeys? Better than life itself.

And as the Voice of God blessed our ears, what did you do?  You booed. You groaned. You likened him to "an Atlantic City lounge singer," as though that were a bad thing.

You don't deserve him. None of us do. All he wants to do is to entertain us. To quench our thirst with his meticulously crafted ale. To teach us important life lessons such as the need to believe in order to believe.

And still, we mock. Have you no taste? No decency? No desire to stay away from expensive litigation?

Shame.

***

Update: Let this be a lesson to all you haters out there. From the heavenly voice of the chiselled god of pulchritudinous power drinks himself:

"We played at the Beer Gardens (at the Grand Prix) and we packed it. It was like 7,000 people until 11 o'clock and we had to send them home. As I walking out these four (expletive) guys started yelling, 'You suck, man' and I yelled back, 'Not as bad as your life.'"

Is it fair that a man so blessed with superhuman talent should also possess such a rapier wit?

If you look up "bush league" in the dictionary, we're pretty sure you'll find this photo next to it.

Come on, Judge Doom. You're up by 23 points with four minutes left in the game, against a team that's playing without its starting quarterback or its top two receivers, after you've been humiliated in your previous two games...and you run a fake field goal?

We'd say something about karma coming back to bite Tom Higgins in the ass, but we seem to recall making a similar prediction last year about Wally Buono and karma apparently slept through November. So let's be a little more practical about this.

Suppose it's the fourth quarter of next week's game against the Lions, and you're down by five points with a few minutes left. It's third and long, and you line up for a field goal that would cut the lead. Instead, you run a fake, hoping to take the lead. Except due to a magical invention called "game film," the Lions are expecting it. So instead of razzle dazzle, you just get splattered. But hey...at least you showed that non-divisional rival who's boss, at least when said non-divisional rival is playing with its third-string quarterback and no receivers.

We don't want to say it totally made up for last year's East Final, because that might be overstating things ever so slightly. But, you know, it's pretty obvious that the Argos made a big statement on Saturday.

That statement, obviously, is that we absolutely own the Als when they're starting Marcus Brady. Also, that our third-string guys are so much better than their third-string guys that we don't even need a real kicker to beat them.

Seriously, though, there were some encouraging signs, mostly on offence. Things we learned on Saturday:

• Michael Bishop is capable of playing a strong first quarter, not just coming off the bench (although it still disturbs us that this guy's 31 years old).
• Mike McMahon is good enough to help us get over the all-too-short Tom Arth era.
• Eric Crouch still throws like a girl.
• With Steve Buratto in and Kent Austin marooned in Regina, the Argos may run more in the first game this season than they did in the entire first half of last season. On the other hand, they'll have at least 50% less awesome car-related advertising
• It's never too early in the season for Jonathan Brown to demand some noise.

We'd go on, but we're too busy lamenting that there's no longer somebody named Woodly Telfort on the roster. On the bright side, Woodly is presumably consoling himself at his summer home in the Hamptons.

Well, this is familiar. After a break last year - when, to our knowledge, no East Final took place - we're back to Montreal in November. This now being something of a routine, we're reminded of some of our more memorable Montreal moment from the past few years:

2002: At 9:00 PM the night before the game, we're wandering through the Crescent Street area (yes, we know Monrealers don't actually go there) when Argos' starting quarterback Reggie Slack wanders by looking rather enthused by the nightlife. This does not strike us as a good sign. The next day, he gets injured in the first quarter and is replaced by Marcus Brady. On a happier note, we wind up the Saturday night leading (or attempting to lead) Argos chants at an Irish pub while chatting with a coach from the University of Saskatchewan

2003: The night before the game, we nearly get run over by a man on an electric scooter. But before that, we take in the Habs game - where Argos yells (not by us) are unexpectedly heard around the upper deck. At the end of the gamne, we're quietly waiting outside the washroom for Cowbell Jenny, wearing our Argos jerseys, when a group of similarly attired gentlemen emerges and begins high-fiving and back-slapping us. The group proceeds down the stairs and somehow finds a couple of a Ticats fans to begin taunting. This all strikes us a good sign. The Argos proceed to lose on a controversial Calvillo touchdown that  should have been ruled a fumble.

2004: Stumbling onto the Santa Claus parade the day before the game, we're pretty sure we hear a choir singing a chorus of "St. Hubert. St. Hubert, St. Hubert." (We're still not entirely convinced it was "c'est l'hiver.") Accustomed to disappointment on game day, absolutely nothing strikes us a good sign. The Argos proceed to win handily, as we discover that Montrealers go silent the moment their team falls behind...and throw their thundersticks at us.

Yesterday's comeback was such an unexpected joy that, for once, we don't even need to belittle some other team or its fans to make ourselves feel good. And really, we have no bone to pick with Bombers backers. It's no fun having your season fall apart before your eyes, and it's not the fans' fault that they're stuck with Milt Stegall while we get Arland Bruce.

That said, one of the joys of the information age and its vast, vast array of sports-related message boards is that the emotional rollercoaster fans go through each game is saved for posterity. This is especially the case during sudden-death playoff games in which your team blows a 10-point lead in the final minutes.

And so, having had it brought to our attention by our friends at Argofans, we bring you this. You know that Simpsons episode where Lisa rejects Ralph Wiggum at the Krusty special, and Bart explains that in the slow-motion replay you can pinpoint the exact moment Ralph's heart breaks in half? This is pretty much like that, except it's Michael Bishop doing the heartbreaking.

We've spent three days trying to figure out what exactly went wrong on Saturday afternoon - and how to prevent it from happening again in the East Semi-Final. Now, the so-called "experts" will tell you that the Argos' big mistake was abandoning the run in the fourth quarter, and they're probably right. (As proof the Argos have absolutely no idea what to do with Ricky Williams, the dude was playing special teams on the opening kickoff - and the Argos were the ones kicking.) But from where we were sitting, there were a couple of other factors that towered over that one.

The first, it almost goes without saying, was local man-about-town and Boatmenblog nemesis Frank D'Angelo. Forcing D'Angelo upon us once this season was more than enough. But bringing him back for an encore halftime performance - that was just cruel. And it was terrible karma - not so much because the Argos forced innocent fans to suffer through it, but because they were complicit in the humiliation of presumably innocent Steelback employees. One minute you're minding your own business, polishing your resume so you can send it to Labatt's; the next, you're being dragged up before 38,000 people to join the "Steelback 2-4" as an amateur trombonist or backup singer. It's not hard to understand why these people looked so embarrassed - even Ben Johnson apparently took a miss on this. ("Sorry, Frank...I'm happy to do those commercials, but I'm worried this might be a little undignified...")

So, yeah...no D'Angelo on Sunday, please. And you know what else? Enough with the free junk, too.

We know this sounds crazy. But if you're wondering why the whole stadium was so flat in the second half - a mood that seemed to rub off on the Argos - it's probably best to start with the avalanche of crap that began after half time and carried on throughout the third quarter.

It's well-established that even the most useless free stuff turns otherwise intelligent people into morons. (For proof, consider that day each spring when Baskin Robbins offers free ice cream. If you went up to any of those people at the back of the hour-long lineup and told them they could move to front if they paid $3, how many would turn you down?) So  for some reason, fans who've paid $40 for a ticket to a football game will happily forego watching that game in order to devote full attention to trying to catch an ugly t-shirt that they will never, ever wear.

The Argos presumably know this. They also know that an engaged, noisy crowd is a major advantage for the home team - especially in the second half of a tight game. This would be why Jonathan Brown and Michael Fletcher will likely be seeking treatment in the off-season for repeat stress disorder from all that time waving their arms in the air trying to generate noise.

So next time, how 'bout we save the t-shirt tosses for commercial breaks. Or, better, scrap them entirely. As an added  bonus, this will enable those of us actually interested in the game to watch it, rather than catching the occasional glimpse through a maze of grasping arms. And it will help prevent Maude Flanders-style tragedies, which apparently are not as uncommon as one would think.

We know...Saturday night was ugly. Even if you didn't go 0-4 in your weekly picks (or as we call it, "taking a trip to Marty York country"), you're probably looking for a little solace after spending the last two nights having nightmares about the Argos throwing another useless pass to the flats and punting it away on third down. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to look on the bright side of life. Allow us to present a few of them, to help you get through the week:

• No matter how many stupid mistakes the Argos made on Saturday, and there were plenty, they had absolutely nothing on Wally Buono's failed attempt at cleverness yesterday afternoon. Fittingly, for a guy who routinely leaps on his high horse to accuse other teams of "embarrassing" the game, Buono wound up costing his Lions a win against the 'Riders by trying to make a mockery of the CFL's overtime format. For those who missed it, Buono's stroke of genius came with the game tied, the 'Riders having missed a field goal on their first OT possession and the Lions taking possession at the Saskatchewan 35. The normal strategy would've been to run a couple of conservative plays to move the ball forward a bit, then attempt a field goal for the win. Instead, hoping for what would've been the cheapest win of the season, Buono immediately sent out Paul McCallum to kick it through the end-zone for a game-winning rouge. Our first thought was how unsportsmanlike it was. Our second thought was that it was Paul McCallum, back at the scene of the crime, and that booting it through the end zone from back there (especially on a punt, rather than a field goal attempt) wasn't quite a sure thing. Sure enough, the 'Riders caught the punt and returned it out of the end zone, and minutes later Andy Fantuz sunk the Lions' battleship with a dramatic touchdown. Usually, Wally waits until November for this sort of meltdown, but we're sure the 'Riders aren't complaining.

• Courtesy of the latest "upset" against the Als, we now have a tie between the Als, the Argos and the Bombers for first in the East - also known as the hottest three-way action this side of whatever Spergon Wynn was involved in this weekend.

• Courtesy of the muted TV in the bar where we watched Saturday's game, we now know there's one way to spruce up even the most depressing loss - closed captioning. We'd normally suggest that whatever computerized system the CBC was using for this, it might do better just to hire someone who's actually watched a football game at some point in his life. But then, that would have deprived us of reading of the exploits of "Recchi Williams" and "Day Money Allen." It's like Chris Berman, if Chris Berman were a robot. Also, if Chris Berman were in any way even remotely entertaining.

• If nothing else, the Argos' road trip was worth it for giving Ricky (sorry, "Recchi") Williams a chance to strut around Calgary in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. If we'd known there was even a remote chance of hanging out with Ricky at this place, we'd have been on the first flight to Cowtown.

• After playing here roughly every three weeks for most of the season, the Argos will have home games four of the next five weekends to close our the regular season. In spite of the official letters of protest already submitted by our livers, we're deeply looking forward to this.

• If nothing else works, do what the rest of us do and gaze fondly at the photo of Boatmenblog's Rusty, surrounded by a pair of cheerleaders and the Argos' unfailingly stylish in-game host, being honoured as "season ticket holder of the game" with a satellite radio. It was nice of the Argos to simulate our fourth-quarter perspective by making the photo as blurry as possible.