Aaaaaargoooooos!

Yesterday afternoon, Tanya and I attended the Argo’s home opener.

As I wrote before, I bought season tickets on a whim this year—for the first time. This was before we knew we would be seeing one of the premier players in Football (Ricky Williams) signing with our humble little CFL team.

Due to a set of unfortunate circumstances, I had to give up my tickets to the pre-season game, so this was be my first time seeing this year’s team.

It was a great day. The sky was clear, the temperature was very high and the humidity almost unbearable, but when we got there, the roof of the Rogers Center was closed—much to Tanya’s relief.

As it turned out though, they only had it closed for the opening ceremonies. Once they were done, they began to roll the lid back. Then I realized that our seats were actually located in the shady end of the field—BONUS! It can get unbearably hot in there under the concentrated afternoon sun, but we were very comfortable where we were.

The game was VERY entertaining. Toronto took advantage of their new high-profile acquisition by repeatedly faking to him and then throwing down the field to wide-open receivers. For the most part it seemed to work, but because of this strategy, Ricky didn’t get the ball much in the first half and was used almost exclusively on first-downs.

In the second half, Toronto had a narrow lead and decided to unleash Ricky on the Tiger-cats. He collected most of his yards in that half.

Tempers flared and things got a little chippy between the two rivals. This was their third-straight game played against each other and it showed. One Argo got ejected from the game and Hamilton took exception with the the Argos going for a very late TD with the game well in-hand accusing them of trying to run up the score.

On a sour note, very early in the game, Toronto QB Damon Allen went down with a broken finger on his throwing hand. It didn’t look good for our side without Allen, but his replacement—aptly named—Spergon Wynn came in, and on his first throw, he hit Tony Miles for a TD. That made the home crowd relax a bit, but not for long, because on the very next drive, Hamilton came back to score 7 of their own.

It was your typical Canadian Football game. Lots of passing, lead changes and action. IT was great!

Overall, it was a positive affair. When the game ended, everyone was invited onto the field for autograph and photograph sessions with the players and cheerleaders. Tanya was very useful when it came to getting me some player autographs and asking cheerleaders to pose for a picture with me. That’s why I love her. She rocks!