1. In which an Edmonton blogger talks about sports.

Sit down, get comfy, pull up a chair. This one might take awhile....or, it might not. I'm going to talk to you tonight about the state of sport in Edmonton, and while I have a lot to say on the topic, I doubt I'll be able to keep my head up off of the keyboard long enough to say it all. So there will likely be more. Huzzah!

Let's start off with what Edmonton is: blue-collar, labour, Redmonton. A brown-bottle beer and perogie crowd. Simple pleasures, mostly, and this has generally been reflected in the cities primary choice of sporting entertainment: CFL Football, first of all, and hockey, starting a bit later, but probably the #1 sport now. But lets go back to football for today.

The Eskimoes might be the oldest pro team in Western Canada...iterations of the team can be traced back to pre-WW1 times, when the prefered term was still Esquimaux in English and French. Technically, there have been three or four teams in that time that have had the name Edmonton Eskimoes (or Esquimaux if you prefer), but they're all considered to share the same history. They're the only community-owned team in the CFL, quite a feat in this age, even for a low-budget operation, and they're the 2nd most winning team of all time, behind only the (spit) Toronto Argonauts.

Now here's where culture hits. Football teams, American or Canadian, that are based in working class cities, run the ball. Edmonton has had its greatest success with mobile quarterbacks that can scramble...Warren Moon, Damon Allen, Tracy Ham. Ricky Ray has been a bit of an exception to that rule, but even in 2003, it was the running game that won the team the Cup. Heck, look at the current Lieutenant Governer of Aberta...former running back Normie 'The China Clipper' Kwang. And look at the reputation Danny MacManos gained in this city: despite being one of the best passers ever seen in the CFL, Danny Mac is routinely outrun by practice dummies, and, as such, was never welcomed in Edmonton.

So that's the pro football side of sports in Edmonton: a blue-collar version of the game, on the ground, pound it in your face, no frills. And Edmonton continues to have the highest league attendance of anywhere in the CFL, despite the 2nd worst climate and an outdoor stadium.

This got a bit out of hand, but that's what blogs are for...rambling. Next time, we'll take a look at hockeyside. Hopefully, sometime in the next days/weeks/months a reader will come to understand how each sport fits in here, why the City of Champions was so important to us, and what I think should be done for the future.

Giant Robot, breaking tackles at the 35 and rushing for a gain of 17 on the play.