Winning in B.C. never gets old.
So many times over the years the Saskatchewan Roughriders have come home from the west coast with their tails between their legs after having their butts soundly whipped by Wally Buono's Lions.
Lately however, the Riders have been doing the tail-kicking including Saturday night's 37-18 rout of their division rivals. In the first outdoor CFL game played in Vancouver since 1982, Saskatchewan led the game from start to finish and knocked B.C. quarterback Casey Printers out of the game in the process.
The contest was staged at Empire Field, a temporary stadium with a capacity of 27,500. It was built in 111 days at a cost of $14.4-million and will be the Lions' home in 2010 while a retractable roof is put on B.C. Place.
The hero in this game? On offence Rider quarterback Darian Durant engineered three touchdown drives and on defence, rookie defensive end Brent Hawkins had two sacks. One knocked Printers out of the game. The other play, he forced and returned a fumble 40 yards for a touchdown to put the game out of reach.
"I'm really proud of this football team," Rider coach Ken Miller said during the postgame show.
He should be.
The Riders are proving to be one of the most solid all-around teams we've ever had and their 2-0 start has them tied for first-place with Calgary heading into this week's home game against Edmonton Saturday (2 p.m. kickoff at Mosaic Stadium).
However with the good comes the bad. We're hearing repeatedly the Riders are becoming one of the most disliked teams across the league because of the resurgence of Rider Pride. Other teams seem to be sick of the Riders having the league's top TV ratings, being the number one drawing road team, setting merchandise sales records and blah, blah, blah.
It would seem the Riders were a much more lovable team when the other clubs could beat them on a regular basis. However that's not the case anymore.
I guess if you have to choose between losing and being liked or winning and being loathed, we would all pick the latter every time.
Rod Pedersen is the Voice of the Riders on 620 CKRM
