Westworld Alberta
Issue link: http://westworldmagazine.ama.ab.ca/i/80542
"We wear our team colours but we come to celebrate Today, many Prairie pigskin fans still make the trip to the Grey Cup each year, renewing old acquaintances en route and attending the parties that precede the game (the latter being a bigger draw, for many, than the game itself). After lunch, I return to the dome car and watch the prairie roll past: the winding contours of the Qu'Appelle Valley and Assiniboine River, grain silos, wooden farmhouses and herds of cattle. Everything about my rail experience so far, from boarding at Winnipeg's stately 99-year-old Union Station to the train's gourmet din- ing and Art Deco furnishings, reinforces the impression that I have slipped through a portal into the past. MOST OF SASKATCHEWAN PASSES IN DARKNESS, but around midnight we stop in Saskatoon, where 70 Roughrider boosters, clad in famil- iar forest-green, board the train. Although Saskatchewan has won only three Grey Cups and plays in Canada's smallest market, its fans are generally conceded to be the most loyal and boisterous of any CFL team. Wearing watermelon helmets, face paint and hula skirts, Rider Nation fi lls stadiums on the road as well as at home and is responsible for more than half of the league's merchandise sales. This group is here courtesy of Dash Tours, a Regina company that arranges transportation, accommodations and 22 WESTWORLD >> SEPTEMBER 2012 tickets for sporting and music events. David Ash, an eccentric entrepreneur who once served as the Roughriders' mascot, Gainer the Gopher, founded the company 34 years ago. Today, with his customary white helmet, red fl ashing light and giant Cana- dian fl ag, Ash is an instantly recognizable fi gure at major sporting events. We shuttle into Edmonton as morning arrives. At the station, a group of Eskimos fans clad in green and gold climb aboard, along with a few Calgary supporters, wearing their iconic Smithbilts, cowboy boots and snappy red-and-black jackets. Normally, the two fac- tions, who represent one of the league's most bitter rivalries, would keep their distance from one another, but today they indulge in friendly kibitzing. This camaraderie between adversaries is one of the appealing aspects of the Grey Cup, says Edmonton Eskimos booster Brian Helm, who has joined the group with his wife, Sherry, and pals Kevin Greene and Brian Matthews. "We wear our team colours, but we come to celebrate Canada and the CFL," says the 49-year-old Helm, who began attending Eskimos games at age 10 as a member of the Knothole Gang. Back then, kids aged six to 12 could sit in a supervised section spon- sored by Woodward's department store at one end of Clark Stadium and watch the action for 50 cents. "My mother would drop me off there and then pick me up after the game," he recalls. Time has not dimmed his enthusiasm for the Eskies. This will mark the 10th consecutive Grey Cup that Helm has attended. "Back in 2002, when Edmon- ton hosted the game, my buddy [Greene] and I decided that we would see Canada through the Grey Cup. I've now been to all the CFL cities except Hamilton." At noon, I visit the train's economy sec- tion, where Rider Nation has set up camp in the bar car. "Welcome to the sea of green," says a fl orid-faced celebrant, holding a cup of beer aloft. He's not exaggerating. Most of the passengers are sporting Roughriders regalia and most know one another from previous Grey Cups. Coming together like this is an annual ritual. We reach the Rockies as the light is dying, but what we do see of Jasper National Park is awe-inspiring: crenellated peaks, hulking glaciers and vast evergreen forests. As we (top, left to right) Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press, Tracy Hyatt, (1948) Toronto Star Archives