So what sparked my fire with the effectiveness of gasoline and a lit match?
In case you either don't care to click the link or don't understand the significance, one CFL team is apparently denying a new CFL team from using the name the city and the country associates with the CFL in Ottawa.
Let me get one thing out of the way, and let's never speak of it again. Yes, this is the same Roughriders-Rough Riders thing that Americans (and Canadians, as well) use to point out that the CFL is, to put it mildly, something less than big league. The AHL, the top tier minor league of the NHL, also has a similar situation, as does the SEC, which is about as big league as it gets in college sports. The AHL's situation (having two leagues merge with one another) is very similar to the CFL situation (East and West coming together to form one league), and if it's good enough for the SEC, it's good enough for America. So let's move on.
Why is this a bad thing, you may ask? Ottawa has had a linkage to the Rough Riders name since as early as 1869, and the club that became the CFL Rough Riders existed as of 1876, and took the name as of 1897. The Rough Riders won 7 Grey Cups, and while they struggled in their last two decades of existence, they had a long and storied history, one that I couldn't do justice to, so I'll just let the fact that the team existed for 120 years stand by itself for the time being.
It came to an end in Ottawa for the Rough Riders because the CFL hit a rocky patch, started losing money hand over fist, and had the bad luck to have some of the worst owners a CFL team could ever have. The last one, Horn Chen, left the team hanging, and the CFL owners, having had to salvage more than a few potentially lost causes over the past 5 years, had to let the Rough Riders slip into history. The other Riders out west were almost in the same boat, but a telethon and support from a province that was struggling economically as well kept the Green Riders from fading into the same history books as the Ottawa club.
Another attempt at CFL football in Ottawa was made with the Renegades, as the owners of the Renegades were not willing to battle Chen for the name and logo of the former squad. These owners would also bail on the team quickly, leading to Bernie Glieberman, one of the aforementioned worst owners ever, taking over the team. It was ironic, because Glieberman wanted to move the original Riders to Shreveport in the early 90's. Glieberman bailed on the team himself, and the CFL was unwilling to pick up the pieces. The team is scheduled to resurface in 2014, this time under (hopefully) competent leadership.
Through it all, the true CFL fans in Ottawa have stayed true, and have had to suffer the indignity of not once, but twice, losing their team because of circumstances beyond their control.
And now this. Sure, small in the big scheme of things, as they would gladly take their team back under any circumstances, but to have another team take their name and claim it as their own?
I suppose, though, that in a place that can't count to twelve, and a people that have been described as banjo playing inbreds by Troy Westwood, the old Bombers kicker, the top brass in Regina may have worried that their fan base would get confused with two teams with almost the same name.
And if you think that was a cheap shot, it pales in comparison of kicking a fan base when it's down.
