Media Day (Canadian Edition): We Stand On Guard For Thee

I would rather extract my own fingernails than start giving any serious thought to Sunday's Jacksonville-Buffalo game, beyond noting that the National Football League's archaic blackout policy gives you an excuse for not watching.

Instead, We Want Marangi is ignoring the Bills completely on this Media Day in order to adopt a championship football team -- the Toronto Argonauts.

It seems only fair. If Buffalo has to loan the Bills to Toronto for one home date each year, shouldn't we get to bask vicariously in the Argonauts' freshly won glory?

The Argos, as we're sure you know, won the 100th Grey Cup last Sunday, besting the Calgary Stampeders 35-22. (In case you missed it, you can watch an extended wrap-up here.)

Toronto followed Chan Gailey's master plan -- stink for most of the regular season, so that nobody really pays attention to you, then get hot late, sneak into the playoffs with a .500 record and run the table. This, of course, is much easier when you play in a league with only eight teams (the CFL will expand to nine in 2014, but unfortunately, only one will be known as the Roughriders).

Canadian football is, of course, fundamentally different than its American cousin: Three downs instead of four, a field 110 yards long (can someone explain why a country that otherwise loves the metric system so much still measures a football field in yards?) and scoring vagaries that no one seems to understand.

There is a drastic cultural difference as well. The Grey Cup's equivalent in this country involves massive corporate Super Bowl parties, two weeks of saturation coverage by every media outlet of significance and boom times for strip joints throughout the host region.

What did Torontonians do to get ready for the Grey Cup? Host a huge pancake breakfast, of course.

                   

God, you people are adorable.

There was a victory parade through downtown Toronto. Buffalo throws consolation rallies (Bills in January '91, Sabres in June '99) instead.

Nor do Bills fans have to concern themselves with another issue facing the Argos faithful -- what does  winning a championship mean to the franchise and the community that supports it?

Having celebrated in joyous, yet mature fashion, the GTA now turns its attention to the scandal involving erstwhile Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and $3,150 in public funds that went to an organization that provides football equipment for underprivileged kids.

If an elected official tried that around here, he would receive a stern public rebuke for misdirecting such a chintzy amount. On this side of the border, if City Hall loses track of 30 times as much cash, the mayor gets easily re-elected a few months later.

It wouldn't be right to tease you with a line from "O, Canada" in the headline without supplying a rousing rendition of The World's Greatest National Anthem.

Note that they did not perform the less popular second, third and fourth stanzas, or the widely ignored Buchan version.