The team that's hosting the Grey Cup isn't supposed to have much of a chance of making it there itself. In fact, it's pegged before the season as quite possibly the worst team in the league. Then it comes charging out of the gate, and everyone - Chris Schultz especially, for some reason - spends a lot of time lauding it as the season's best story...only to watch in horror as the quarterback goes down and the team promptly implodes, suddenly hard-pressed to win another game all year.

Sound familiar? It should. Meet the 2004 Ottawa Renegades. 

Admittedly, the similarities with this year's Blue Bombers don't entirely hold up. For one thing, the 'Gades collapse started a bit earlier. And no matter how bad things get, it's pretty hard to imagine the Bombers (or the "Blue," as Winnipeg media are calling them in what appears to be a fit of political correctness) getting destroyed by Jason Maas. Also, though we can't believe we're saying this, Friday night's game would suggest that Doug Berry might actually be a worse head coach than Joe Paopao - his "zero tolerance" for losing notwithstanding.

Still, we like this angle. After all, any comparisons with the 2004 season are good with us. And the same goes for anything that increases the likelihood of Berry and/or (not the real) Greg Marshall giving us the finger.  

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 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.

All right, let's get this straight. A couple of months ago, with fans begging him to save the Renegades, Eugene Melnyk proclaimed himself too busy trying to bring the Stanley Cup to Ottawa. Now, he's somehow managed to find the time to buy up pretty much the entire Ontario Hockey League.

Two observations. One, Eugene Melnyk is a jerk. Two, barring somehow convincing Mark Cuban to take the plunge into CFL ownership (which would be the single greatest partnership in the history of professional sports), the future of Canadian football in the nation's capital now comes down to one man. One anthem-singing, juice-peddling, beer-brewing, Ben Johnson-exploiting giant of a man. A man who somehow reminds us of Tony Danza, minus the tap-dancing. Ottawans, meet your saviour. But be warned...he's here for a good time, not a long time.