Would You Go All In For 2020?

Would You Go All In For 2020?

Published: Thursday, Feb 6th 2020, 12:02pm

By Alex Dormuth (@RealAlexD)

 

Rider Nation, we all remember how absolutely incredible 2013 was for the Riders, right? I know I’ll never forget the Grey Cup being won at home at Taylor Field over Hamilton… that memory is forever burned into my brain and will go down as my favourite moment in football history. There was nothing sweeter to me than to see your team win the championship in your home stadium, in your season ticket seat, with all your season ticket family around you.

It was -40 pretty much all week until Grey Cup Sunday. It was a BEAUTIFUL night in Regina and the weather was the first thing that went right for the Riders. Everyone forgets that Hamilton took the lead early in that game 3-0 and the game could have ended up completely different if that Darian Durant fumble high into the air was recovered by the Ticats. In reality, it was half a second that the ball was up in the air before Kory Sheets grabbed it and rumbled for 30 or so yards… but that half second felt like an ETERNITY. From there, everything went right for the Riders. EVERYTHING. For once, the football gods were like “hey guys, we’ve kinda been rude to you over 103 years, so just this once… here ya go.”

 

In retrospect, when Durant got hurt in 2014, it was a blessing for the long term gain of the team. It exposed just how old and bad the team was going to get. 2015 came around and the Riders were a joke. 3-15. Too many older players at big contracts. It was then that we all finally realized that the team mortgaged their future to get that 2013 Grey Cup title at home.

 

Would I have gone through that again, a few years of BAD football for that one magical night in November of 2013? YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT I WOULD AND I’D DO IT AGAIN NOW!

 

If I knew that the Riders would win the 2020 Grey Cup at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, but 2021-2024 the team was downright awful, I wouldn’t trade it. That feeling of winning at home, of seeing people in tears because it finally happened, of just pure JOY… yeah, I want that again. I’ll take another 3-15 team and a 5-13 team if it meant a title again. This is a team that has only won 4 times in 110 years! We literally don’t know that we’ll see another one!

I know the team is preaching sustained success and yes, I think that’s important. I’d love for this team to be like the Calgary Stampeders from 2008-2018… be in the Grey Cup often, finish first place almost every year. But we have what they don’t… a Grey Cup at home! Let’s get another one!

 

So I ask… would you go all in for 2020 to see the Riders win the Grey Cup at home if it meant they sucked for a few years? Where’s the dotted line? SIGN. ME. UP!