Football
Music Behind Enemy Lines
Here’s an article I wrote for the CFL web site in 2007 after the Argonotes visit to Hamilton for the Labour Day Classic - and I’m saving it here in case it disappears from the recently-redesigned CFL web site.
Remembering Vern Kennedy - Argonotes trumpeter, singer, composer, all-around good guy
The heart of the Argonotes trumpet section, and lead singer of “Go Argos Go”, passed away this week.
Remembering Waterloo hockey and football coach - and friend of the band - Bob McKillop
Waterloo’s football coach was a friend to me and the Warriors Band.
The story of Go Argos Go - the Toronto Argonauts Fight Song
All about the Argos fight song. Sing along with the bouncing ball!
Remembering former Argos owner Sherwood Schwarz
I was curious whatever happened to Sherwood Schwarz, the New York businessman who owned the Argos during the tumultuous 1999-2003 era, and who we should all thank for promoting Pinball to head coach.
(No, not the "Gilligan's Island" guy, that was Sherwood SchwarTz.)
Sadly, it seems he passed away in February 2023, at age 92. (Did the team ever acknowledge this?)
He was, IMHO, a kind guy who probably didn't quite know what he was in for when he bought the team at a time when nobody else would, although he'll be remembered more for the strangeness of that era - hiring his cousin J.I. Albrecht as GM, John Huard as coach, getting Garth Drabinsky to produce the halftime shows, a Lucky Loonie contest that awarded one fan $1-per-person at every game, and a misguided and ultimately cancelled plan to stage pre-game wet t-shirt contests.
Eventually he couldn't manage to pay the bills, and the league had to take over the team.
One time we got a call from the Argo office. Sherwood wanted the band on the field at halftime. I couldn't imagine why. But we went down, and discovered that they'd planned a field goal kicking contest. Supermodels. Kicking field goals in their elegant gowns and high heels, and Sherwood wanted the band to play "Tada!" after each attempt.
I actually gave him a ride once. I was at the Argo office for some reason or other and he was there and I heard him ask the receptionist if she could call him a cab - coincidentally, I was headed to the airport myself and I gave him a lift, in a car full of Argonotes percussion equipment. We had an interesting yet somewhat awkward conversation - what restaurants did we each like in Toronto? and then he asked me some sort of investment question about Rogers and whether I would buy their denatured certificates of accrual, or something, and I mumbled some answer as if I knew anything about money.
Rest in peace, Sherwood. I hope someone writes a book about that Argo era, it was quite a story, and the team might have folded if you hadn't stepped up.
Standard CFL Arguments
The league announced that Green Day would be the halftime show for the 110th Grey Cup next month in Hamilton, and although the response was generally positive (and I think it’s a great choice), it reminded me that there are some evergreen CFL discussions that just won’t go away. I wanted to note these here for future reference.
The Standard CFL Arguments.
1. The Halftime Act.
“The halftime act should be Canadian! Dozens of people would surely tune in to hear (obscure band from Flin Flon, or some other band that was popular 40 years ago and which would appeal to that coveted 65+ demographic, or some artist that it turns out has already played at the Grey Cup , etc)”
You know what, we’ve already had Justin Bieber, Gordon Lightfoot, Bachman/Turner, the Guess Who, Bryan Adams, the Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Nickelback, Celine Dion and Shania Twain at the Grey Cup, so you don’t need to suggest those. Come up with some other suggestions. (Also for the record, Rush is no longer available.)
Incidentally the 78th Grey Cup featured “Esmeralda Colombian Dance Group, Mlada Srbadia Serbian Folk Dance Group, Joy of Movement Studiom Yuen’s Institute of Tae Kwon-do and the Hungarian Csardas Dancers of Vancouver”. Now THAT was a show.
I tend to feel that if the halftime act is a band that I, an old guy, actually like, it’s probably not exactly the right choice to attract new interest to the CFL.
2. CFL Expansion
“The CFL should expand! Here, let me show my amazing geographic knowledge with a list of a dozen random cities.”
I have actually seen Churchill, Manitoba and Cornwall, Ontario offered as serious suggestions. Which kind of reminds me of Nate Silver’s infamous recommendation, based on counting up Google searches for the term “NHL”, that the NHL should consider to something called “Sudbury - Thunder Bay.” Never mind that those cities are an eleven hour drive apart. Let’s just name random cities.
3. Location and Time of Games
The right day, time and location for home games (which usually means “more convenient for me, personally”)
(Sometimes people say “If the Argos played at York, they’d attract lots of fans from north of the city”, which conveniently ignores that they’d probably lose even more fans who take Lakeshore trains to the games.)
Paul Woods noted that “it is surely a prerequisite that anyone who says “York” lives west of Thunder Bay and has never been to Toronto.”
4. Attendance Problems in Toronto
“CFL attendance is a complicated problem, so here is a simple trivial solution that I can’t believe MLSE hasn’t tried”
Right, put up some billboards, blanket the newspapers with ads, why don’t they let people in for free, that’ll fix everything. Just ignore that, unlike every other CFL city, there are five other pro teams in town, and an NFL team just an hour away, and another couple of NFL teams just four hours away, and another entire CFL team just down the QEW.
My friend Cameron Hayglass added another -
5. Problems Unique to the CFL
“only in the CFL!” (highlights problem routinely seen in at least one of NBA/NHL/MLB/NFL)
and I then also remembered to include
6. New Stadiums
Any observation about building a new stadium anywhere that does not include any indication of where the $200,000,000 is coming from.
And a problem in every league everywhere -
7. The Fix Is In.
“The referees and the league obviously want team X to win”, say fans of team Y that just lost to team X.
Toronto Argos Game Day Off-the-Field Action Report for Game 4: Argos vs Ottawa
Here’s another in the irregular connection of Off the Field Reports. You can read the details of the football action anywhere, but what if you want to know what’s happening in the stands instead? What if you want another report on whether the QR Code pizza slice contest worked? Where can you go? Where?
Well, here as it turns out. And if you just can’t get enough of this, you can catch up if necessary on Game 1, Game 2 and Game 3.
Game Summary
Argos: 44
Ottawa: 31
Weather: Beautiful
Crowd: Boisterous
what were the other people on the GO Train coming down to see?
Something called KidzBop was playing at the Budweiser Stage, and I must extend my congratulations to all the moms and dads who were accompanying the throngs of excited young people. I hope there was something fun for you older folks too, perhaps some Glenn Miller covers.
wait wasn't Kidz Bop at 4 and the football at 7?
Yeah, we came down earlier than normal. We took a friend from California to his first ever CFL game, and did a couple of tourist things ahead of time. Including visiting Little Canada, an amazing HO Scale recreation of great Canadian scenes, found at Yonge/Dundas Square. Highly recommended! Even if it features 1:87 working models of the Skydome and Air Canada Centre - or whatever they’re called now - but not BMO Field.
Here’s a panorama of Toronto at Little Canada. You really should check it out.
And we headed from there to the game.
So anyway our friend James really enjoyed the game and is now the Argos Good Luck Charm, as they have never lost when James has been on hand. (My Apple friends, you know James from his band And the Breakpoints of course.)
could we possibly talk about the football game
I’m getting there. Before the game, I decided I needed to buy an Argos jersey. I quite like the new 2023 design and decided to go for the Cambridge Blue home version. You know, Cambridge Blue. The lighter of the two Blues associated with the Double Blue, the other being Oxford, unless I have that backwards.
I bought the jersey before the game and then hustled back to my seat, and much to my surprise, the custom name/number lettering was done ALSO BEFORE THE GAME with a speed that surprised me. I guess it pays to be one of the first in line.
what name/number did you get
Well I thought about this a lot. In the Argonotes days I was “DICTATOR / 94”. Maybe. Or I could have got “ARGONOTES / 23”. Maybe that too. Or a lot of people get one of their favourite player, and for me that would have been “BALL / 6” (and here’s why Marcus Ball is my all time favourite.)
Ultimately I went with DICTATOR / 94 for sentimental reasons, but I then spent the rest of the game wondering if the iron-on numbers they’d applied were actually in the same font as the real player numbers. Still not quite sure. Will be investigating this further at the next game.
apart from yours what was your favourite jersey
BOATMAN. That was pretty good. The Argos are known as the Boatmen, of course, and the team actually had a player named Shannon Boatman who played five games in 2010. It’s almost the perfect jersey!
Except I talked to this guy and said “Hey, that’s great that you have a Shannon Boatman jersey” and he told me that he chose BOATMAN as just the team nickname, not a salute to Shannon Boatman who he wasn’t even aware of, but that it worked out nicely.
i wonder who actually has a legit Shannon Boatman game worn jersey?
wonder no more.
has the game started yet or are you just going to write about things that happened before the game
Soon. I promise. First though
National Anthem
It came in at 1:31. As usual. Lovely voice. Please go faster.
kickoff!
An odd siren sound was played at the start of the 1st and 2nd halves. I get that they’re trying something new here but they need a better recording, or a better live performance. It was oddly anemic sounding.
how did your american friend James like the game?
He liked that at one point the ball was on the 54 Yard Line, something he’s never seen before.
promotions recap
A good set of promotions this week, including some sort of Match Game thing where you were given a prompt (“Fill in the blank: WATER ______") and you had to match what the prerecoded player was going to do. I liked that.
This contestant got 2 out of 5 right but the game day hostess said “You’re still going to win.” (cough) isn’t it odd how people just about always win? it’s as if they’re going to give the prize away whatever happens, which is good.
Did they do the spin-the-wheel thing? YES
Did the contestant give yet another extremely weak spin, rotating the wheel only about 60º presumably so it wouldn’t spin forever? YES
Do you understand how this promotion works now? I think so. You get one spin. But you play Rock/Paper/Scissors twice with Jason the mascot, to win additional spins. Something like that.
What about the Possibly Dangerous Tumbling Cross The End Zone Inflatable Thing? NO (unless I missed it.)
Were people throwing footballs into the crowd? YES and the throwers were, I think, actual amateur football players and they were really heaving the things up into the 200 level. That was nice to see.
the cannon
Fired once after every Argo touchdown, and (oops) once after the Argos were stopped by Ottawa on the 1 yard line (oops). A little premature exhilaration there. Whoops. Argos still won. Cannon was fired on the subsequent kickoff rouge to even things up. All is forgiven.
the fight song
Played after 4 out of 5 touchdowns. The Section 123 choir is in fine form and I am happy that people are gradually picking up on the Official Gestures, seen here:
I noticed the words on the scoreboard too. Thanks, Argos! (Now if we could just stop cutting it off before the 2nd chorus ends.)
members of the game
Props to the Argos for honouring long time season ticket holders too (or as MLSE calls them, ‘Members’). Here are (I think) Les and Elizabeth, with former Argo Chad Folk. This is a nice initiative.
how about letting members fire the cannon?
Just a thought. The smoke rings are cool.
Halftime
Dogs! Dogs catching frisbees! I love that. Although they spent quite a while erecting some mysterious structure at center field that was used maybe for one jump only.
The dog did manage to jump over the thing, and also Jason. Good doggie.
the referee
It was everyone’s favourite official, Andre Proulx. The crowd seemed to disagree with many of his decisions. It’s amazing how many experts there are on the CFL rulebook, particular the subsections around Pass Interference or Roughing the Passer, and how clearly the fans can see exactly what happened better than the officials who are standing right there.
You know what, I wonder if he gets hassled more than other CFL referees mostly because he understandably speaks with an obvious accent, so you KNOW it’s him.
I like the guy. Hey, we won. Quit complaining.
signs of the game
I didn’t see any particularly great fan signs this week, but I will point out that our Hide the Defensive Coordinator Signs are WAY better than Ottawa’s. One tiny little logo on the side? Come ON, you can do better than that.
before or after 1914?
This was a fun quiz too. Asking players if certain things had happened Before or After the Argos won their first Grey Cup in 1914.
Hey, we all learned something. Vacuum cleaners predate the first Argo Grey Cup
Drum Battle
I liked it when mascot Jason and a fan were taking turns wailing away on a drum. More like this please.
the QR Code
Did they figure out the Pizza Pizza QR Code technical glitch that has often plagued this giveaway? Well, here’s the code…
This QR code happens to translate to this URL: https://uqr.to/1jlea
and once again I think they’ve botched the Javascript on that web page, as it is trying to redirect to this nonsensical URL
window.location='https\u003A\/\/pizzapizza.lnk.click\/toronto\u002Dargonauts\u002Dscore\u002Da\u002Dslice\u002Dckw482\u002Daugust\u002D13';
I can see what they’re trying to do, they want to redirect you to this link
https://pizzapizza.lnk.click/toronto-argonauts-score-a-slice-ckw482-august-13
which would work, if only they hadn’t messed up the Javascript code on the original page.
This promotion STILL needs some work. if you were at the game and this QR code worked for you, let me know what I’m doing wrong, because it sure seems broken.
conclusion: did you have fun
yes. And you should come too! Here’s yet another reason why: No annoying digital ads on the field unlike when you watch the game on TV!
Thanks Argos for another great night of football, and thanks to the Section 123 Choir for fight songs that just keep improving.
footnote on GO Transit and Metrolinx
Generally taking the train to the game works great, from either East or West. We come in from Oakville. Super easy. Train drops us at Exhibition Station 100 yards from the stadium. But all week long, Metrolinx had been announcing that the Lakeshore East line would not be running on the weekend. This caused a great deal of confusion. Lakeshore East? Like, travelling eastbound? Don’t we travel eastbound from Oakville?
Wait, NO. What they meant was that the eastern half of the lakeshore line, from Union Station out to Oshawa, would not be running. The Lakeshore WEST line, which we take, was still operating from Oakville to Exhibition Station and on to Union, and then back later.
I wonder if they ought to rename the line. Trains run Eastbound on Lakeshore West, and vice versa. People were confused. I don’t mean to slam Metrolinx, I know the work has to get done some time, and there was at least one time when Argo fans persuaded them to postpone a construction stoppage until after the game had concluded so people could get home, so they are trying to do the right thing.
next time you do this: Include a diagram!
