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Saturday December 11, 2021

December 12, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 11, 2021

Fans feeling the love, excitement as CFL’s premier game set to kick off

Chants of “Oskee Wee Wee” are echoing through Hamilton, the streets flooded with CFL jerseys from across the country and rival fans are taking part in some good-natured ribbing.

It’s Grey Cup Sunday and the energy surrounding the biggest game in Canadian football can be felt around much of the city.

“The excitement, the fans, the crowds. It’s just going to be an amazing game,” said Pam Broadley who’s been cheering for the home team, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, for two decades.

The Ticats take on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at 6 p.m. ET.

It’s a rematch of the last time the Grey Cup was awarded in 2019, in Calgary, after last season was cancelled amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (CBC) 

 

Posted in: Canada, Hamilton Tagged: 2021-41, blue bombers, cfl, football, Grey Cup, Hamilton, Mascot, Ticats, tiger-cats, Winnipeg

Monday September 7, 2020

September 7, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Fantasy Classic 2020

Illustration by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Labour Day, September 7, 2020

‘It’s like they made the whole thing up’

The Tiger-Cats, the Argos and their colourful fans provide a 2020 Labour Day Classic completely unlike any before

August 20, 2014

Unless Labour Day is part of your geographic and cultural DNA you’d never assume that a single play more than 30 minutes from the end, could determine the final outcome.

Especially when the margin of victory was the minimum one point and the combined score — Hamilton 57, Toronto 56 — was the highest in CFL in history.

But that’s why when we assume on Labour Day, it makes an ass out of u and me, and not just the Toronto Argonauts. 

There were the Argos presuming they could finally add another chapter to the one of the shortest sports books ever written: Great Argonaut Labour Days. But the smug smell of football assumptions turns into a performance-enhancing drug when the Ticats and their fans inhale even a whiff of it.

Toronto captains Joe Krol had correctly predicted Vic Copps’ coin toss to get the northern gale at their backs for the long fourth quarter, a win-advisory in itself. Ever since Environment Canada designated the stadium a National Wind Tunnel, games have been divided into two distinct personalities: you can score with the wind but not into it.

Which is where the final minute of the first half takes over the story of the 50th Labour Day Classic.

With the Argos riding first-quarter wind advantage to a stunning 44-12 lead, they confidently lined up for a short field-goal attempt into the wind from the Hamilton 20-yard-line. Even a single point would make it a five-score game, and it’s over.

High in the open grandstand, man of the of the people and former Argos owner John Candy, was whooping it up beside his glum Hamilton-raised SCTV buddies Martin Short, Dave Thomas and Eugene Levy, egging on the surly citizens who love him every day but this one.

“I think you meant ‘Don’t Suck!’” he yelled. 

Bad karma, John-Boy.

July 9, 2014

The snap from Norm Stoneburgh, Royal Copeland’s hold, the Lance Chomyc’s powerful swing, the ball soaring 50 feet into the air like a helium balloon … then abruptly plummeting like a lead one as it caught the head wind.

“ I thought I was back in Guelph,” Ticat lineman Mike Filer said.

“I thought I was back in the ’65 Grey Cup,” the Argos’s Dave Raimey and Ticats’ Ellison Kelly said in unison.

Speedy Banks thought he was in returner’s heaven. He caught the ball like an infield fly, dashed past 12 frozen Argos then zigzagged into the South End zone around members of the Ticats Cheer Team who’d prematurely hit the field.

After Troy Davis pounded in the two-point convert everyone, including the instantly-paranoid Argos, knew things had completely changed. Down only 24? On Labour Day? Got ‘em right where we want ‘em.

As Banks tore into the end zone, Evelyn Dick — a season’s ticket holder since the 1950s — dressed all in black screamed with innocent joy.

“I was absolutely out of my head,” she said. then paused “ … just like my husband.”

She was joined in her private box by Johnny Papalia who, like a lot of folks in the Murderer’s Row suites, was there in hologram form only. Deeply-experienced in gory history, they knew what was coming next for the Argos. Down the hall, though, blissfully unaware Toronto mayors Rob Ford, John Tory and Nathan Phillips gloated it over Hamilton’s Lloyd Jackson, Bob Morrow, and Fred Eisenberg.

“They’re just like the fans,” grumbled Ticat owner Harold Ballard. “You can’t get the $#%&*’s to come to regular games, but discounts on Labour Day? You can’t get rid of them.”

Just five minutes before Banks’ 109-yard return Ballard had spontaneously sold the Ticats to Bob Young, muttering “maybe this tech nerd can save them.”

Young immediately asked the Argos to immediately sell him Pinball Clemons for the second half. Clemons had already scored touchdowns in three different ways — by run, by catch and by grinning — but Ticat front office interns, Shawn Burke and Drew Allemang, gently explained why it was against CFL rules.

November 28, 2014

“What kind of business model is that?” Young asked.

By the end of the intermission, Young’s right hand man Scott Mitchell had bought back the stadium naming rights from Krispy Kreme and sold them for five times as much to Ron Joyce and Tim Horton, and through commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s CFL 2.0 Japanese connections, had positioned Hamilton as the default site if Tokyo can’t stage the 2021 Olympics.

Banks’ wind-aided home run sent anticipatory adrenalin surging through the entire stadium, including the halftime massed choir and orchestra. When Crowbar, Terra Lightfoot, Junk House, Frankie Venom and Teenage Head, Arkells, Monster Truck, Garnett and Stan Rogers, and Neil Peart struck their first note, conductor Boris Brott’s glasses disintegrated.

And, over the next 30 minutes, so did the Argonauts. 

The Argos crumbled under a revived and ferocious Hamilton defence, and did not score a second-half point while touching the ball. Ralph Sazio surrendered six safety touches. “Not my first rodeo,” the Ticats’ head coach growled.

Tobin Rote who had combined with Flutie for five touchdown passes in the opening 30 minutes, soon left the game, missing a part of his left ear later found embedded in Angelo Mosca’s face mask.

Meanwhile Danny McManus and Bernie Faloney, sacked a combined eight times in the first half, threw only one incompletion and an interception in the second, while flinging surgical touchdown passes to Hal Patterson, Earl Winfield and Banks. They controlled the clock against the wind too handing off to Willie Bethea, Lee Knight and Bernie Custis, the only guy in the game with a school named after him.

Banks added a punt-return major to his missed field goal and reception touchdowns and scored again when he recovered a fourth-quarter fumble by Dickie Thornton, whose interception seconds earlier should have locked it up, again, for the Argos.

And late in the fourth quarter, Banks lined up deep in the backfield and as Joe Zuger’s punt hit the stiff breeze, caught it on the fly and ran 65 yards for the game-winning touchdown. It was his fifth different method of scoring, equalling in one game the CFL season record set by Ticat Marcus Thigpen.

The Argos still had one last chance, with the wind, at victory. But Garney Henley stepped in front of Mookie Mitchell to pick off Flutie and it was all done. The Ticats outscored Toronto 45-12 in the second half, enough by just one point.

The visuals painted the entire picture. Every Box J Boy, tailgating since Sunday, rendered totally limp; Henley and Banks buried under an avalanche of fans, Custis and Toronto’s Uly Curtis walked off arm in arm; brilliant Argo linebacker Mike O’Shea’s shoulders slumped in dejection, as he stood exactly where he had whenever he wasn’t on the field — which almost the entire second half — on the sidelines, distanced from his safety-conscious teammates, while a ReStore employee picked up the hundreds of tiny batteries Ticats fans had lobbed at him.

What if, he was probably wondering, that first-half place kick hadn’t hit a wall of wind? 

He’ll never know, what if, and neither will we because the 50th Labour Day Classic goes into the books just like another 35 before it. Ho-hum, just another win for the Town Team. (Steve Milton – Hamilton Spectator)

Posted in: Hamilton Tagged: 2020-29, argonauts, Argos, cfl, Classic, Coronavirus, covid-19, dream, fantasy, football, Hamilton, Labour Day, Ontario, pandemic, Pandemic Times, psychedelic, Sports, tiger-cats, Toronto

Friday May 15, 2020

May 22, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

May 15, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 15, 2020

CFL could lose $100 million if season lost

The CFL commissioner says that a repayable loan would be among the possibilities within the league’s request to the federal government for up to $150 million in financial assistance.

November 21, 2012

“The one point that hasn’t come out so far is that we’ve said to the government we’re prepared to be creative, and consider all options to be on the table, ” Randy Ambrosie told The Spectator on Wednesday morning. “Ultimately, we just want to find a way to get through this crisis together and we’re prepared to talk to the government about anything.”

Tuesday night, Ambrosie told Dan Ralph of The Canadian Press that in the request the league’s accountability to taxpayers would include, “community programs, tourism promotion, the Grey Cup, our digital channels.” But a loan was not specificially mentioned.

August 23, 2014

Those are positive things the CFL already does and Ambrosie did not mention then the prospect of any kind of loan. But, on Wednesday, he said a loan would be among the things that the CFL would be willing to discuss with the federal government.

The CFL financial proposal to the government is three-tiered: $30 million to manage the impact the pandemic has already had on CFL business; further assistance if there’s a shortened regular season; and up to another $120 million should the league have to collapse its entire season.

Ambrosie reiterated Wednesday that if the CFL cannot play at all in 2020 it might imperil the league’s future because the cumulative loss “could be $100-plus million. Those are actual P &L (profit and loss statement) losses.” 

There has been understandable negative reaction to the questionable optics of what appeared to be a straight bailout to a league in which six of the nine teams are privately-owned, including Bob Young’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Ambrosie said he understands that sentiment.

Coronavirus cartoons

“We are not tone-deaf to the realities of all this but we also know that this crisis will end and Canadians will need to get back to things which bring joy and passion to life,” Ambrosie said. “Sports is part of that and the CFL is a really big part. It’s not appropriate to just hope that this crisis passes: somebody famously said that hope is not a plan.

It has long been the opinion in this space that while the CFL must always operate as a sustainable business and league, it is, and has been first and foremost a cultural institution. The failure to grasp that — at various times in the past even some franchise owners themselves have done that — is to misunderstand its role in this country, and the unifying place of the 111-year-old Grey Cup game, which is much older than the formal league itself.

The CFL seems to welcome a broader discussion on whether it is indeed a necessary cultural institution, differentiated from the NHL, NBA and MLB, leagues with headquarters and most of their teams in the U.S. Ambrosie feels its history, consistent local-employment factor, and the historic durability and surging financial impact of the Grey Cup festival arguably separate it from other domestic leagues as well.

“We are so different than every other sports league on the planet,” Ambrosie told The Spectator. “And what we do in our communities really matters. The tone we’ve set for generations and generations has been so consistent with Canadian values. We are more than a sports league.” (Steve Milton – Hamilton Spectator) 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2020-17, bailout, benefit, Canada, cfl, Coronavirus, covid-19, culture, Fat lady sings, football, Opera, pandemic, Sports, stimulus

Saturday June 23, 2018

June 22, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 23, 2018

Citizen support has Bernie Custis, Nikola Tesla back in the mix for new Hamilton high school name

The chair of Hamilton’s public school board says trustees were as surprised as the public when the two most popular names for a new high school across from Tim Hortons Field didn’t even make the short list.

After asking for citizen input and hearing from almost 1,300 people, the advisory board tasked with providing finalists passed on the two with the greatest support — Bernie Custis, which had the most, followed by Nikola Tesla — for two with no local connection. It’s a decision that has led to a significant public outcry.

“I think it’s the names we missed that had us scratching our heads,” Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board chair Todd White says.

Emails and calls have been pouring in to White and to The Spectator over the past couple of days, and social media has been humming. White says after hearing from many Custis supporters — and a few Tesla backers — it’s clear there’s “overwhelming support” for those two.

The only people who’ve contacted him about Shannen Koostachin are some media from northern Ontario. The Indigenous teenager fought for a school in Attawapiskat, but died in a car accident before she could see it come to fruition. Her name was favoured by the advisory panel.

“We didn’t hear much from the community on that name,” White says.

This all started back in February when the board asked the public to suggest possible names through its website. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator) 

Posted in: Hamilton Tagged: Bernie Custis, football, Hamilton, high school, honour, naming, Scott Park, Tim Horton's

Saturday September 2, 2017

September 1, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday September 2, 2017

Ticats’ Miserable Days, Summed Up

Football can be a dangerous, brutal sport. It’s particularly bad for brains. So far, most of the supporting evidence for that has come from studying the brains of dead players. Today, we’re going to change that.

For more than two years, The Spectator has been involved in a unique collaboration with a team of McMaster University researchers. We’ve been conducting sophisticated brain scanning experiments on nearly two dozen retired CFL football players to measure the long-term impacts of concussions and repeated hits to the head.

We believe this is the first study anywhere to report findings from living former football players using such a wide array of tests.

The results are “shocking,” one of our experts said. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

Meanwhile, In a span of less than a day, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats went from controversy to contrition over the hiring of disgraced former coach Art Briles.

Team owner Bob Young and CEO Scott Mitchell both apologized for adding Briles as assistant head coach on Monday, an offer that was rescinded following an outcry from fans and an intervention by the Canadian Football League.

“Clearly, what was being contemplated was totally unacceptable to the general public and the media,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “I think when we took a step back and had a chance to talk to the league and some of our partners and some of our fans, what we thought was an opportunity to give somebody a second chance was clearly not acceptable in relation to what had previously happened and what (Briles) had been involved with.” (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Posted in: Canada, Hamilton, USA Tagged: cfl, football, Grim reaper, Hamilton, injury, justice, Labour Day Classic, law, NFL, play-by-blay, players, research, scandal
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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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