Rascism In Calgary

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CFL Losers - The Entire East Division

It seems like every year lately the East Division of the CFL is becoming more and more of a joke. A quick perusal of the standings makes this more and more evident. Three of the four teams there are below .500 and two of them are so far below there is no conceivable way for them to crawl back into it. It all starts with Casey Printers for the Hamilton Tiger Cats. A former MOP, he tried his luck in the NFL for the Kansas City Chiefs and was unceremoniously cut. There is nothing new about CFL players trying out for NFL teams, what could be disturbing is that unlike Jeff Garcia, Doug Flutie and Warren Moon, Casey Printers tried out for a terrible team, and didn't even manage to make it on as a backup. His CFL MOP season was tremendous, but given his recent performances in Hamilton and Kansas City, it leads me to believe that the onus for those campaigns was more on the rest of the team than Printers himself.

Look at the Lions, even now, dead last in the West (yet still above .500). They still have arguably the best receiving corps in the league, far and away the best defensive line in the league, a seriously good offensive line, etc. The message should have been sent around the league when Wally Buono started Dickensen instead of Printers in the Grey Cup.

The rest of the division has not fared too well this season either, Toronto is in shambles, Kerry Joseph has recently been benched for under performing. Winnipeg has randomly become an absolute mess, just a smidgen better than the lowly Ti-Cats. Recently Montreal ventured west only to get totally creamed by a hungry Stampeders team that was desperate for some separation in the West (they didn't manage to get it, the Tiger Cats played their best only to revert back to their old ways and lose to Edmonton).

The only thing buoying the Alouette's record this season has been a terrible division to feast on, otherwise they might have been below .500 as well. As terrible as the East is, every once in awhile they show flashes of brilliance. Winnipeg in particular this season has had some amazing 'almost won' games. Mental errors seem to have plagued the cellar dwellers more than anything else this season, o-linemen totally missing blocking assignments, receivers running routes that the quarterback did not anticipate or were not part of the play, etc. This season it looks probable that we will have two west teams in the Cup final, hopefully BC and Calgary.

Last Week's Ride - Highway 3

Last week I was fortunate enough to ride out on Highway 3 to the Okanagan and come back three days later. For those of you who don't know Highway 3 is the 'scenic route' to the coast from Calgary and southern Canada. The whole highway once you get off 22 coming down from Calgary and get onto the 3 is full of motorcyclists. Once you get deeper into BC it's easy to see why.

Twisties abound, and you'll often find yourself riding hard through a mountain pass only to be blown away by a breathtaking vista that showcases the natural beauty BC is famous for. My favourite leg of the highway is the one between Creston and Osoyoos, there is not a lot of developement along that trail, and it's where the curves in the road get real agressive. There's nothing like ripping through tight turns at a decent clip and being able to simply rip open the throttle and pass all the minivan imprisoned squares while you arduously climb a massive mountain in the middle of nowhere. Also, once I ended up in Osoyoos I hit up the highway to Keremeos and then hopped over to Penticton, it was a beautiful ride through those dry, almost desert hills.

Being that I was riding a sportster with the stock gas tank, with a grand total of 3.3 gallons of space, stops were frequent. I was itching to test out the advertised 60 MPG highway on this bike, unfortunately it wasn't quite that fuel effecient, however there were several mitigating factors. On the ride down to Crowsnest Pass early Sunday morning it was perhaps 3 degrees celsius out, tops. Regrettably this forced me to warm my hands up on the engine itself, seeing as I was doing a decent clip of 120 kph pretty much consistently. The wind chill was ferocious at this time of year, and until about 10 am I had to do this with regularity. This prevented me from keeping a constant speed and I drifted into Crowsnest Pass in bad need of gas.

That was the only hiccup though. This winter I'm definitely going to try and invest in some heated grips and perhaps saddlebags as the backpack started to wear on my shoulder pretty hard by the end of the first trip. I also got a few dirty looks from fellow HD riders because of my full face helmet. I own a bucket helmet, but I rarely take it outside of city limits, simply because I don't feel I have enough riding experience yet to take a bee (which has happened at highway speed) or worse yet a rock, to the face and maintain control of the bike. Plus all those dudes had windshields anyways.

It was a great ride, unfortunately I didn't have my camera on me at the time, but next time I will for sure. Highly reccomended for those itching to get out on the highway and like to ride.