Article: Kyle Leitch – Production Manager
[dropcaps round=”no”]O[/dropcaps]nce upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, over what the hell it was I was going to write for our op-ed editor, while I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping on my monitor.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “Skyping on my monitor –
Only this, and nothing more.”
Of course, instead of catching up on my long-neglected collection of Edgar Allen Poe’s works, I closed out of the distracting Skype, and hopped onto the websites of local news outlets. Nothing angers the blood enough to write one of these pieces than the poorly-constructed sites of most major news outlets. Suffice it to say, I was not disappointed.
Every news outlet, from the Leader Post to the CBC each had tens of thousands of words dedicated to the hometown fucking heroes, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The green-painted goons that swarmed the city were mocking me from every webpage where I tried to find something that constituted real news. What did I finally find? A blue link in ten-point font at the bottom of the page (yes, even underneath the Contact Us links) that had a retrospective on last year’s Connecticut school shooting, including snippets of the conclusive police report.
“What utter horseshit is this?” I asked. I get. We, the lucky denizens of Regina, Saskatchewan, live in the armpit of the crotch of the world, and exactly bugger-all happens here. The local professional sports team won a football game with an ass-ugly cheap trophy as a reward. Here’s your bulletin—the exact same game is going to occur next year. The results of this one are of no consequence. The way the news has been responding, it’s like these assholes cured fucking cancer.
I know it takes approximately four brain cells to be considered amongst the safe majority of Rider “Nation,” but this team has a cult-like following. And not a cool cult following like Quentin Tarantino’s got; I was thinking more of the Jim Jones cult variety.
I know I’m stepping on some toes and making some waves here, but give me a break, will you? I think we can all agree that when the exploits of the equivalents of small kitchen appliances in tights rushing up and down a flat piece of fake grass chasing an egg-shaped turd for three hours begins outweighing real news, it’s time we step back, and readjust our priorities.
If the current trend continues, Regina won’t be the host city for the Grey Cup for at least a decade. That’ll give all of the light post-climbing, drink-drugging, riot-inducing humanoids of Rider Nation time to sober up, recover, and get some common fucking sense amongst them. I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you put forth even half the concentration into that as you do into this football team, by the time the Grey Cup rolls through here again, we’ll have a fan base consisting entirely of Sherlock Holmeses.
As for me? Rider Nation can count me out of its census.
[button style=”e.g. solid, border” size=”e.g. small, medium, big” link=”” target=””]Image: Arthur Ward[/button]
