RIDER NATION (SBP) — Seven months after watching their beloved team lose a second consecutive championship game, Saskatchewan Roughrider fans all over the country have been eager to see what twists and turns will take place during the season before the team loses the Grey Cup again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 2009 Grey Cup loss was a tough act to follow,\u201d said Rider fan, Sean Trembley, \u201cIt really made the 2010 loss look average by comparison.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2009 Grey Cup will live in infamy as the game featured two dramatic final plays; one where there was a missed field goal and the Roughriders won; and, a retry from 10 yards closer because of a \u201ctoo many men\u201d penalty. The second field goal attempt was made, thus allowing the Montreal Alouettes to win in unprecedented fashion, 28-27.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it was an impossible task to surpass that ending,\u201d said Rider Fan Elena Noel, who was sitting in the end-zone where that infamous field goal was kicked, \u201cThere\u2019s just no way you can top the kind of collective ripping out of our hearts that we had in 2009. I guess that\u2019s why the Riders did what they did in the 2010 game. <\/p>\n
\u201cKinda like, you know, we can\u2019t make a defeat more dramatic than that. So, why even try?\u201d<\/p>\n
By contrast, the 2010 Grey Cup merely featured a Roughrider team that carried an 11-8 lead into halftime, thought the game was over, left the stadium, and boarded a plane back to Regina. The Montreal Alouettes, though frozen and sluggish, managed to dodge drunken fans on the field the entire second half and scored the necessary points to win 21-18.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought it was odd that we didn\u2019t have the trophy with us at the airport,\u201d recalled a Roughrider coach on the 2010 game, \u201cWho knew that they made a formal presentation at centre field? And, that was when we clued in that it was only halftime. But, we were thirty-thousand feet in the air and halfway back to Regina by then. No pilot is going to turn around the plane at that point. Especially when we were flying coach and took advantage of a seat sale.<\/p>\n
\u201cAh well, at least we know for next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drunken fans did hold the Alouettes to just 13 second half points but, their lack of equipment and formal training in the fine arts of kicking, throwing, blocking and tackling became more evident in the final quarter when Montreal scored 10 points and never looked back. Rider fans did answer with an inconsequential late touchdown during a commercial break. While the score should not have been allowed, officials feared that the alcohol fueled \u201cplayers\u201d might erupt into a Vancouver-esque riot.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really did everything we could at last year\u2019s Grey Cup,\u201d said Rider Fan Ryan Barbaro, who scored the fourth-quarter touchdown after picking up the unattended football during a commercial break, \u201cAt the very least, unlike the Riders, we were making adjustments during the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
How will the Roughriders lose the Grey Cup this year is anybody\u2019s guess. Will they recover a fumble and run it into their own end-zone for a dramatic, game-losing safety? Will they have too few men on the field and leave a receiver wide open? Or, will they just not show up at all? Rider Nation will just have to wait, see and watch the house of cards fall where they may.<\/p>\n
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RIDER NATION (SBP) — Seven months after watching their beloved team lose a second consecutive championship game, Saskatchewan Roughrider fans all over the country have been eager to see what twists and turns will take place during the season before the team loses the Grey Cup again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1614,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions\/1614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.saskabush.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}