Shannon Vizniowski/CFL.ca
At least the beer was cold and it kept flowing.
On the field, the Toronto Argonauts were cold and the Hamilton Ticats kept flowing.
In the end, what I got out of sitting in the stands at a football game for the first time in seven years was something that the Argos are going to need moving forward after a completely humbling 64-14 home opener loss to their Southern Ontario rivals.
A change in perspective.
“We’ve just gotta get our minds right,” said Toronto Coach Corey Chamblin after the game, stalwart in his determination to not let a 50-point loss in his double blue debut define the season to come.
He preached the need for everybody to just keep their sticks on the ice, if you’ll allow me to mix my sports metaphors.
Haven’t sat in the stands for a #CFL game since 2012.
Have always been in the P.A. booth or media box since then.
Hey, @MikeHoganArgos,
I’M HAVING BEER. DURING THE GAME.
Ahahaha! HAHAHAHA- *spills entire beer on lap, stops laughing*Um, hi to Schultzie. pic.twitter.com/wrNnvzcnWB
— Don Landry 🏈 (@CFLLandry) June 22, 2019
“It takes every man that’s on that roster,” Chamblin said calmly. “And every man that’s next on that roster. And every man that’s coaching that man, and everyone that’s taking care of him, in order for things to turn around.”
Pull together, in other words.
If it’s any consolation for Chamblin and his reeling team, I’d say the general vibe from the Argo faithful – at least for now – reflects his refusal to hover his hand anywhere near the panic button.
Not since the 2012 regular season have I had the chance to sit in the stands at a CFL game. For the previous six seasons, I’d been employed by the Argos as their public address announcer, a position I stepped away from at the end of last season. Since 2011, I’ve had the pleasure of writing about this league for CFL.ca, and every trip I’ve made to a stadium in that time has been a business trip.
I’d grown accustomed to working at games as opposed to sitting in the seats, listening to and taking part in football conversations that happen to spring up all around. Having a couple of beers and scarfing some pizza. Laughing at the zingers that always fly around during a game. It was nice to be part of all that again.
Although I didn’t get the barn-burner I’d have liked in my return to the pews, I did gain some insight into what Toronto fans were feeling as their optimism for the new season was sternly put to the test.
I also got, through happenstance, the opportunity to get a take on three players who’ve been getting a little heat this week, for something that I believe was inflated out of proportion.
Sitting in a west side section near the goal line for the first half, and then moving on to the end zone seats for the second, I got a nice little mix of reaction from Argos and Ticats fans alike.
From the Toronto side, there was much moaning; About the play of the team, and about an opportunity lost, on a glorious day, to re-set the feeling around the franchise. To put a terrible 2018 season far, far behind.
But there was a real lack of doom and not much anger. I admired, with great irony, the pluck of one Argos fan, in particular, sitting on the East side, heartily bouncing a “Ticats Suck” sign back and forth, even as the visitors had crossed the fifty point barrier on the day.
From the Hamilton standpoint, great joy, of course. Like going to a party and then finding out it’s actually a surprise party in your honour. And they talked your favourite band into playing on the back deck. And then, having the host hand you a key fob and exclaim “we all chipped in and bought you a sports car! Anything else we can get you?”
Times are good in Hamilton, right now, even if there exists a teeny-weeny bit of a wary glance cast the way of the better-than-we-thought Ottawa REDBLACKS, the team that has mostly been the bane of the Ticats’ existence in the East the last few seasons.
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The overall feeling? If all the Toronto backers on hand could have coordinated a message to their team as the game got out of hand, they might all have folded their arms over their chests at once while saying, in unison, “I’m not angry. Just disappointed.”
And perplexed, too, with the optimistic view that things couldn’t possibly get worse, and would probably get better. That there was nowhere to go but up from the nautical disaster unfolding before their disbelieving eyes.
“Can’t lose faith after the first game,” said quarterback James Franklin afterward, probably unaware that he was echoing the sentiment that I’d witnessed in the stands and on the train ride home.
“I don’t think there’s anything left in terms of exposing,” said Chamblin, when asked whether a treacherous outing of that magnitude might actually have some value, with no secrets left to be found.
That’s the good news for the Argos. They’ve got an extensive how-to on improvement, with illustrations aplenty.
The question is: Do they have what it takes to use the lessons and turn their home opener into a distant fever dream? “Everybody has to get better,” said receiver Armanti Edwards, the only Argo to score a touchdown on Saturday.
Edwards, I was surprised to hear, was taken to task, this week, along with fellow receiver S.J. Green and running back James Wilder Jr. Their crime? Being upset about it all.
I saw their transgression play out before me, and it seemed minor, really.
I’d decided, as the clock was ticking down, to head over to the walkway in the northeast corner of BMO Field. That’s the spot where Argo players make their way to and from the field, in between barricades that keep fans and other onlookers back, but within reach and most definitely within earshot.
I wondered what I’d see and what I’d hear as the team came through.
“Boy, are these guys ever gonna get it,” I thought, still expecting some peak anger to surface.
I spied, at the far end, receiver Derel Walker bobbling a pass that then bounced into the waiting hands of Hamilton defender Rico Murray. Before Murray had snatched the ball out of the air, the clock had already hit zero, and Murray jogged his way into the end zone on the last play of the game.
Just after he did, I saw two figures in dark blue, running away from the scene and towards us in the corner. It was Green and Edwards. Shortly after that, Wilder followed, their teammates remaining for what some see as obligatory post-game fraternizing with the opposition.
With a glance at the scoreboard, my immediate thought was that I didn’t blame them one iota. That I could sympathize with those feelings. Of being so angry with what had transpired – a keister-kicking the likes of which had never been seen in the long, long battle history between these two teams – that they had to remove themselves, hastily, from the painful scene. To go and decompress.
Some people can park that stuff right away, others need some time. Here are three guys who need some time, is what I thought. The anger they felt? That’s not a bad thing at all, provided the rest of their mates feel the same way and that they’re just better at hiding it. And that they channel it ahead of Monday’s game in Saskatchewan.
“It won’t happen again,” said Edwards about not hanging around on the field after the final play. “But, losing like this, it’s not gonna happen again either.”
As each of the Argos made their way past the fans and into their locker room, I didn’t hear a negative word, never mind any full-blown vitriol.
Just some cheering, some calling out of names and some encouragement.
There was some hand-slapping. Maybe it was kinship. Hey, we’ve all been there, somewhere along the way in our lives.
Chamblin’s insistence on process, Wilder’s, Edwards’ and Green’s anger.
Franklin’s faith. There’s room for all of this as ingredients in a bounce back as long as the Argonauts are made of sterner stuff than what was displayed in their home opener.
That was the view from the stands, anyway. It’s up to the Argos to prove that now.
