The 2011 CFL season is now in the books as a team of hungry Lions showed why they are kings of the football jungle in Canada. There was a predatory style to the B.C. Lions as they stalked and killed their weaker prey, without mercy and largely without resistance in the back nine of the football season.
Old Lions even showed the way as former ‘60s B.C. quarterback Joe Kapp settled an old score with former ‘60s ‘Cat Angelo Mosca at a football luncheon.
There was nothing pretty about the Kapp-Mosca catfight and the biggest casualty was the dignity of both men, but it set the tone for the Grey Cup: do not mess with angry Lions.
The star of the day was B.C. quarterback Travis Lulay, a fiery red-headed quarterback with a big future ahead of him in the league of his choice.
I hope that choice means the CFL, but it could easily be the NFL. The league down south is undoubtedly well aware of Lulay, and this guy is a starter in any league. He may look like Richie Cunningham but he plays like Jeff Garcia.
The game was largely an affirmation of a stone cold reality that the Lions were the best team in the CFL this year.
Sure they started the season slowly, but the secret to championships is how you finish the season and first place is the only option for teams and their fans — players’ friends, family and Rider fans excepted.
I liked the production of the Grey Cup TV package because it proved that insightful looks at the players and personalities of the league are not impossible for TSN.
Last weekend was a treasure trove of TV pieces about the people behind this remarkable league, most of whom toil in anonymity during the rest of the year.
Typically TSN delivers fast-food style football broadcasts that will kill your appetite with empty calories and minimal nutrition.
They satisfy a basic hunger for televised games, but their lack of real substance will eventually kill viewer interest.
Bad camera coverage, lack of real play analysis, a shortage of football programs with an in-depth look at players like the Grey Cup shows, and Rod Black are a few of the shortcomings of TSN.
TSN can do a much better job with their CFL TV product; they prove that point every year at the Grey Cup.
I felt sorry for Winnipeg Blue Bomber tackle Doug Brown because he will not have a Grey Cup championship for his retirement gift.
Football does not play favorites when it comes to sentimentality and warriors like Brown will have to be satisfied with a career that will land him in the CFL Hall of Fame and not on a Grey Cup team.
Bomber quarterback Buck Pierce was under a lot of pressure before and during the game.
He was able to put something together in the dying minutes of the game, but it was too little and too late for a storybook finish. The final score was simply window dressing to avoid embarrassment for the Bombers because BC Place was just another killing ground for some bloodthirsty Lions last Sunday.
There would be no mercy and no survivors when it ended.
See you in 2012 for another CFL season.
jim@mystarcollectorcar.com
