bluto

I am mildly surprised to discover that a not-inconsiderable amount of Christmas gifts I ordered (ok... a few of them are for me), have been stranded in Winnipeg. i) I had no idea that this company, which I am a big fan of and have spent many tens of thousands of dollars with, ships its merchandise out of Manitoba. ii) I can only presume that they are holding it up and jeopardizing my Christmas plans because they know I'm an Argo supporter and are still sore at me after last month.

The man is trying to manage the Football OPS budget. He'll sign last. Someone is in charge of player retention rn, got to be Walters.

JFC... another 6 week gap between Home games in the middle of the summer. I'd be furious about this if I were even the faintest bit surprised by it.

I used to think that, but was told by someone that he is in fact Italian.

For what it's worth (as this was in 2017) Fajardo was a good backup/short-yardage QB for us. But then, he knew that he was never first choice if Ricky was fit to play. Maybe he's ok to be the second banana if there's an unquestioned QB1,

Big Triceps, those guys.

"Legs has taken big strides." -wbbfan I 💙 this.

Wait... that sentence can be interpreted 2 different ways...

Thanks and no need to apologize. I knew what forum I was posting in.

I get it, Bros. Take your time with it and by the time we're approaching free agency and drafts and having a few juicy comings & goings stories in the off season, your thirst for the new challenge of 2023 will pull you onward. It's the love that will bring you back. Winning is great, winning Championships is epic but it is the love of your team and of our game that makes me utterly doubtless that the prospect of a new season of the CFL and Bomberball will embolden you all, once more to risk your feelings by investing a not insignificant part of yourself in the fortunes of your team. You are the Bombers. That's why it can hurt so bad. I say this as someone who routinely is met with puzzlement, laughter, indifference and sometimes hostility because I am an Argonaut and I could never be anything else. Lots of food for thought in this thread. Thanks everyone. Particularly the part which @wbbfan added about the ways that we identify ourselves and partition aspects of our psyches into 1,2,3 or more parcels really gave me a "pause and consider" moment.

To: The Bomberfans of Morning Big Blue CC: The various other CFL fans here First I'd like to offer my most genuine congratulations on your 3rd straight Grey Cup appearance and having been the best team in the league over that period of time. Although the talk of a "dynasty" may have tailed off for now, knowing the standards that your Head Coach holds himself and his team to, I have every reason to make your club early favorites to be West Champions again next season and then the talk of an O'Shea Dynasty may resume. Secondly my thanks to all of you who've forwarded congratulations. It's been a good morning for me and I know that your own has been not quite so good. So with that in mind, I really appreciate the sentiment especially knowing that you're still feeling the sting of last night. To those of you who took the opportunity leading up to the game where you were solid favorites and felt secure enough in that to shittalk me, my team and my home both publicly and privately I say this: sit yourself down and have a word with yourself. I could go through the game and why it is that the Argos won and the Bombers lost and I'm happy to do so if anyone wants to see my takes on it, but honestly that feels like coming into your house and spiking the football. So the most brief summation I can put on it will be thus: The Argo Bounce is real. You'll get 'em next season.

Never in my lifetime (and I'd suppose pretty much all of yours) have we had this matchup in the Grey Cup. And if you, dear Bomberfan, could go back through your memory of all of your past teams and coaches and then select just one of them to be taking the field this Sunday for All The Marbles, I can't think that many of you would pick any other Bomber squad or Coach that you've ever personally witnessed above this one which you have. Conversely, we the Argo Faithful, would be stretching the truth if we were to say the same. Indeed, most of us wouldn't have this year's incarnation of the Boatmen in our top 10. Speaking for myself, I confess great sporting admiration for your current team, its coaches and its accomplishments. Having myself been spoiled by epic teams in the past, I remember well the great feeling it brings to have your spirits buoyed by witnessing a well-oiled machine, firing on all cylinders and sweeping all before them. It is a daunting prospect for any club to come up against such an animal - apologies for mixing metaphors - but as you well know, there's a reason why you don't just declare a winner before the ball gets kicked. Any Given Sunday. This time honored maxim is a cliche for a very good reason: the team that is supposed to win, doesn't always win. Game of inches and such. I go into this matchup once again prepared for the emotional wound which losing The Big Dance can bring... But then, I have made this preparation for each of the last 3 of these games we were in and the outcome wasn't what it ought to have been. We were solid underdogs in all of them. We should have lost each of them. But we once again had our glorious name etched of the Cup because for each of these games we had a gameplan that worked, made fewer (or no) mistakes, and we had that one intangible that others will scoff at, but we, the True Double Blue know from the bottom of our hearts is real: The Argo Bounce. It's a helluva thing, but time and again, year after year, decade after decade, The Argo Bounce has come from out of nowhere and given us Victory and Glory that just frankly and earnestly speaking should never have happened. Fumbles, Tips, Deflections, Slips, Bonehead Errors and yes, Bounces. They should not keep happening, and the younger Bomber supporters with less appreciation for the Storied History of a rival team may deride this as a bullshit thing that isn't real and that random acts of bounce happen for and against every team. Well, yes they do. But the grizzled veterans amongst you look back over the years and in some recessed corner of your memories do in fact recall a stupid amount of random events granting risibly improbable wins for the Toronto Argonaut Football Club. And you wonder, will The Argo Bounce show up? Can the nigh invincible Bombers be denied by The Football Gods showing their favour once again to the Mighty Scullers? Likely not. This is probably the year where The Law of Averages catches up to us. When Lady Luck looks past us because we have just had it so damn good for so damn long. Maybe the Argos show up and have their best Gameplan, best Effort, make no mistakes and do everything right but still fall short because their opposition was just too much for them to overcome. The Blue Bombers should win this game. I can't fathom that you'd find many Argo fans who, if forced to bet everything they own on this game, would take the Argos to win it. If Winnipeg shows up and plays their best, it probably won't matter if Toronto can show up with their best. Winnipeg wins that matchup nine times out of ten... Or... maybe Any Given Sunday and The Argo Bounce happen. Some of you have known me 20 years or close enough to it. You know that my wish of good luck to you is sincere and it is in the tradition of sporting competition that the better team on the day wins. I witnessed your years in the wilderness and the false dawns that ignited hope in you that never came to be. You are deserving of your time at the top spoke of fortune's wheel because you've known the bottom of it. Sincerely & Fraternally, It's Go Time. I will look for you on the field of honour.

So that's why I never made it in the NFL... Mike O'Shea doesn't do head games...?

Maybe. But this Club is ridiculously good at winning Grey Cups. We were solid underdogs in our last 3. We're solid underdogs this Sunday. We should totally get killed in one of these things sooner or later.

Neat-o. Wonder what would happen if he were matched up against a Club that was 6-0 in their last GC appearances.

I posted in the Eastern Final thread...

Spread is Winnipeg -4.5, Over/Under is 48.0.

Gotta be honest... I don't. We haven't had a single outing this year where I've come away feeling like we had our game dialed-in in all three phases. Luckily, we mostly played against teams with less talent than we have (ie: The East, Saskachuk and the Elks). But our lack of cohesion, or sloppiness and our downright baffling gameplans (and I don't even feel that they merit being called "gameplans") has got to catch up to us eventually... Maybe we win tomorrow because we're a squad made up of far better players than the Larks... But even if we do, we'll need all the Argo Bounces that we have coming to us for the next season or two to pull off an upset in the GC.

I would like to take this opportunity to state unequivocally for the record: -The Alouettes suck. -Montreal sucks. -The Province of Quebec sucks. -Montreal Smoked meat and Poutine are okay but if we're being honest they're overated. Argos Rule #GodsOwnFootballClub

Pretty sure if I swung a helmet at some dudes head I could get charged with attempted murder.

At the tailgate. Lots of people pissed that we didn't go for 2. I am telling them that in all fairness, we oughtn't have been within 2 points. The Football Gods are cruel. Sometimes they are fair. See you next time.

I thought it was their LNG that's keeping Europe warm. Remind me who is negotiating the Iran deal on the US's behalf?

If I have a dog in this hunt, it is the prevention and cessation of needless human suffering. That's it. I understand this is an emotional topic for you and I will try to keep that in mind. If my posts are causing you grief or stress, sincerely, I apologize. Yes. I know what it means. That's why I used the metaphor. And your implication that it can only mean the threat of force is just wrong. I'm sure the West's condemnation of Putin really hurts his feelings while they still, all of them, buy his gas. At prices which all went up due to his incursion into Ukraine. Ouch. I didn't say that the West has nothing. Perhaps you read it wrong? I said they'll do nothing. Which they, in any real terms, are doing. F-All.

That was unnecessary. But it really doesn't matter to me. I don't have a dog in this hunt. Russia is going to do whatever it will, the West will sabre-rattle and basically do nothing about it. That much is now obvious.

Hate being a Debbie Downer, but this is the exact sort of "loss" I expect them to take. A smashed Ukraine military and their anti-Russia President deposed in favor of someone else, 2 new "republics" along with a Crimea that is full of Russian troops... and the poison pill that the West wasn't counting on: The Sino-Russian cooperation which will make their trade and banking sanctions irrelevant and lead to an undermining of the USD as the world's reserve currency. Nations like India (who I don't think have officially condemned Russia's actions?) with their huge economy and a pair of mid-size ones like Iran and Pakistan will be all watching this very closely. There's other pieces on the board here. And NATO/US/EU's unwillingness and inability to do a darn thing about Russia in Ukraine is the first big domino away from the Post Cold War Uni-Polar world toward the Multi-Polar world in which we now find ourselves.