Voice of the Riders talks about life playing in the “fishbowl”
Courtesy Rod Pedersen.com:
Regina is renowned across the CFL for being a “fishbowl”. People connected to - or more specifically employed by - the Riders find themselves under constant scrutiny 24/7, 365. I’ve got dozens, if not hundreds, of examples but I’ll tell just a few. K-J said to friends after The Trade that he’ll miss Regina but he won’t miss the fishbowl. It’s because of times like this one; on an off-day Kerry purchased a bottle of wine in the LB store. The clerk said, “oh, so is this what you do on your day off?” The quarterback was left speechless. This is much bigger even, than the NFL. Kerry could walk the streets of Seattle as the Seahawks’ safety, and never be noticed. Betcha Matt Hasselback could too.
One time Paul McCallum and I went to the Pump quite some time after “The Miss”, and it turned out to be a bad decision. It seemed reasonable at the time … I wanted to drink some beer and listen to country music. Where else would you want go to do that? But one drunk after another stumbled by where we were standing and stopped to make an ignorant comment to Paullie. It was the usual — arm around you, falling down, spitting in your face as they emphatically made their point, poking you in the chest. Most of it was negative, and I couldn’t believe the gall of these people. But they don’t need to be pie-eyed to make the comments. Paul gets it all the time. We left the establishment shortly thereafter. Nothing good happens after midnight, to quote Rich Preston.
I can appreciate the fact Rider Pride is province-wide, but this hysteria is limited to just Regina. One time in a flight home from Hamilton, Colin Scrivener awoke from his slumber and leaned over to me and said, “when we get home, you, me, ‘Drew Moore and Nate are going to Moose Jaw to party.” I said, “why Moose Jaw?” And Scriv replied “Because no one knows us..”
March 11th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Great article Rod!