Rob Vanstone: Much ado about mutton — sheep pay a return visit to Mosaic Stadium
WARNING: The following feat of investigative journalism will include some baaaaaaad jokes as we shamelessly pander for sheep laughs.
The shear audacity of it all!
If you dare to wade any further into this submission, you may be inclined to wonder: “How has this (ahem) writer pulled the wool over employers’ eyes for so many years?”
Might the powers-that-be end up feeling thoroughly fleeced?
We are assuming that not-inconsiderable risk by exhaustively documenting the visit of two sheep — Allia and Bella — to Mosaic Stadium, where the affable creatures met with select Saskatchewan Roughriders players and employees following Wednesday’s practice.
Allia and Bella had also been on the premises three days earlier, when mutton busting was part of the halftime show on Country Roots Night.
Most memorably, one of the sheep — named Kanga — escaped from the fenced area and performed a lap of the field, prompting a flurry of social-media activity, leading to some TV time on TSN, and spawning the kind of tacky jokes that only a sheepish scribe could embrace.
The name “Ron Lambcaster” was ingeniously tossed around on Twitter, as was “Kory Sheeps.”
All of this happened while I myopically immersed myself in all matters football, leading up to the Roughriders’ wild-and-woolly, 26-24, comebaaaaaaaack victory over the Ottawa REDBLACKS.
All I can do, at this late stage, is meekly counter with Ewe Campbell and D.J. Flock (ouch!) while revelling in the exclusive access I was granted to the sheep who kindly took time away from, uh, whatever it is that sheep do and paid us a visit on Wednesday.
Allia and Bella emanate from Buckthorn Acres, near Craven. The ranch is operated by Dylan Hanson, who kindly made the trip to and from Regina on Wednesday with his daughters Nevaeh, 8, and Brynlee, 5.
“This is fun — something we wouldn’t normally do,” Hanson said after meeting Roughriders players Anthony Lanier II, Logan Ferland, Riley Schick, Logan Bandy and Amari Henderson, along with yours truly (job description subject to change after submission of this column), Jacqueline Hurlbert (Director, Marketing and Fan Engagement), Karina Peterson (Community Operations Co-ordinator), Blake Tiedeman (Digital Media Producer), Morgan Fleury (Digital Media Co-ordinator) and Tyler Daku (Social Lead).
The players anxiously awaited the unveiling of Allia, who was rather ram-bunctious while confined to Hanson’s trailer.
Lanier II stood nearby, holding the lettuce that he would soon offer to Allia as a gesture of friendship and goodwill.
“It has been a while since I’ve been around a sheep in person,” Lanier II said. “When he was coming out of his cage in the back of the truck, it looked like a scene out of Jurassic Park, the way they were hitting the wall.
“So I got a little nervous. I stood behind somebody at first.”
Upon emerging, Allia greeted everyone with a rather robust “Baaaaaaaaa.”
“Baaa,” Lanier II replied.
There was evident apprehension as he wondered how, or when, to approach Allia.
It is one thing to lock horns with an aggressive offensive lineman, but that comes with the territory for an experienced and accomplished pass rusher. But what if a sheep were to become combative?
“He has been trained for this a lot more,” Lanier II noted. “It’s more genetically structured for him to win. He was kind of eyeing me down and he has good peripheral vision, so I was like, ‘OK, I need my helmet.’ ”
After a short getting-to-know-you period, Lanier II offered Allia some lettuce and, very soon, everyone was getting along famously.
“I was embracing the time of being out there,” Lanier II said. “I was just worried about it fussing at me because I wasn’t feeding lettuce to it fast enough.
“Every time it wanted more lettuce, it kept saying, ‘Baaaah!’ But I know it meant, ‘Bring some more over here!’ ”
While all of this was happening, I quietly wondered: “Is this a good omen?”
Leading up to the 1989 West Division final, Calgary-based cartoonist Dave Elston had dismissed the 9-9 Roughriders — who were about to face a 16-2 Edmonton squad with a Grey Cup berth at stake — as “The Sacrificial Lamb.”
Elston’s drawing showed a dishevelled-looking lamb wearing a battered Roughriders helmet.
“I thought, like everyone else, that they were going to get their butts kicked,” Elston, a fine guy and a legend in his field, told me in an interview for my book about the 1989 Roughriders.
Elston’s cartoon appeared in the Calgary Sun and Edmonton Sun on the morning of Nov. 19, 1989, a few hours before the Saskatchewan-Edmonton game.
The Roughriders proceeded to engineer a monumental upset, winning 32-21.
As soon as the outcome became evident, the Calgary Sun was deluged with phone calls from Roughriders fans, who kindly offered reminders of “The Sacrificial Lamb.”
Taking note of the feedback, Sun sports scribe Al Ruckaber turned to Elston and quipped: “I guess your sacrificial lamb was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
It was an “aha!” moment for Elston, who immediately dove into a follow-up cartoon.
Readers were soon treated to Part 2 — “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.”
The sequel showed a wolf’s head poking out of a sheep’s costume, beside a mangled Edmonton helmet.
“It’s funny because so many people said, ‘That was really clever for you to think of that, bang-bang, with two cartoons in a row,’ but it was totally a fluke,’’ Elston recalled.
“Valuable lesson. I never went out on a limb like that again.’’
Or a lamb, for that matter.
It mattered not. Elston had carved out his own unique chapter in Roughriders history, thanks to Parts 1 and 2.
“They were,’’ former Roughriders play-by-play announcer Geoff Currier said, “two of the great cartoons ever done in sport.’’
One week after the shocking turn of events at Commonwealth Stadium, the Roughriders defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 43-40 to capture the second Grey Cup championship in franchise history.
Nobody revelled in that victory more than the triumphant team president, Tom Shepherd.
