The Mother of All Touchdown Celebrations: No wonder Johnny Manziel wanted to play in the Canadian Football League – we do things a little different up here.
Ottawa Redblacks’ offensive lineman Jon Gott avoided being fined by the CFL despite chugging a beer during his team's 24-9 home win over the Toronto Argonauts on Nov. 2.
Following an Ottawa touchdown, Gott, who is from Alberta, ran into the end-zone stands, grabbed a beer from his girlfriend and chugged it through his facemask before crushing the can against his helmet.
The only way it could have been any better (or worse, depending on your perspective) would be if had he climbed into a hot-air balloon and let it carry him out of the stadium and into the Ottawa night.
The league couldn’t completely let it go, of course; they quickly put in a rule about beer and drug use on the football field. I’d guess that since weed is now legal in this country, CFL brass wanted to ensure that no player would score a TD and then spark up a celebratory doobie under the goal posts.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
Non-Sports Thought of the Week:
(Note: A reader kindly left me a telephone message Thursday morning, after reading this column in the newspaper. She pointed out that the poppies are given out free of charge, although donations are gratefully accepted, so this space has been altered).
As Don Cherry says, “buy a poppy”. Volunteers are giving them away at various locations around Pictou County as we near Remembrance Day, so drop a few coins in the jar, accept a poppy and wear it to honour not just those who died on battlefields thousands of miles from home, but those who made it through, even if there were scars – some visible, and some not so much – that stayed with them.
My grandfather, as stated previously in this space, spent two or three years as a POW, forced by his Germans captors to work in a salt mine (most of the guards, he once said, were decent to the prisoners).
He didn’t speak of his war experiences very much unless he was working on a glass of rum (with a splash of Coke just for colour), but he got out of it alive and made his way back home. Many others didn’t, though.
Acceopt a poppy, donate if you can.
Wear it.
Other Random Sports Thoughts:
• It’s November, which means it’s not only the month we will celebrate International Men’s Day (Nov. 19), it is also playoff time in the CFL, with two games this weekend, starting with the B.C. Lions at Hamilton Ti-Cats (even on the road, the Lions are a good bet, because they’re hitting the playoffs with some steam).
Out on the prairies, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders will hook up in Regina, where the Roughriders have the best defence in the CFL and should win on their raucous home field.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
