Go, Lions, Go!

When I was a kid growing up in Winnipeg, I used to listen to Blue Bomber games on a little bedside, brown plastic radio. Later, the CBC began a practice of playing the week's game in real time on black and white TV on Sunday nights around midnight. You could actually see a football game from pay to play in one hour. It was wonderful.

Then, when I was playing basketball at the YMHA, I would occasionally find myself, age 14, playing against Bomber coach (and Minnesota Lakers star) Bud Grant or Bombers quarterback, Kenny Ploen. Amazing!

But in the late sixties, here in Vancouver, I discovered Johnny Unitas, the Baltimore Colts and Kenny "The Snake" Stabler and the Oakland Raiders. My interest in the CFL plummeted as my obsession with NFL football grew exponentially.

I travelled to Seattle once and saw the great John Brodie throw 2 absolutely dead-on TD bombs to Gene Washington right in our corner of the Kingdom!

All of which is a preamble to say how positively impressed I have been with the CFL and the Vancouver Sun in recent years in their efforts to win back my attention. In a league that has been plagued by dollar problems and often a lack of identity, much good has been done to keep the fan base and bring in more.

Congratulations to the league, to the newspaper and to the Lions, in particular.