THE FRIGGIN' TICATS CAN JOE PAOPAO ... THIS MEANS THEY'LL BEAT THE ARGOS

If you follow the CFL, you know how this plays out.

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats, fresh off a 43-point loss last Saturday and the firing of two more offensive coaches today, will regroup and beat the Toronto Argonauts next Monday in the annual Labour Day "classic."

Why will the Ticats win? It's an inviolable law of the CFL. Whenever Hamilton is at absolute rock bottom coming into the Labour Day game, they channel the spirit of Garney Henley and Angelo Mosca and send their hated big-city rivals and their fans back up the QEW with their Double Blue tails between their legs. If -- more like when -- it happens again on Monday, you can colour me the least surprised person in Ontario, if not all of Canada.

Don't tell me the Ticats are dead last in the CFL with a 2-9 record, have scored one touchdown in 16 quarters and are running offensive plays that look like they were drawn up on cocktail napkins. Or how Hamilton just yielded 51 points to a team playing its third-string quarterback. Or how the 5-5 Argonauts have won three straight and are starting to resemble yours truly's pre-season Grey Cup pick, even with Ricky Williams injured and John Avery hobbling. The friggin' Ticats are gonna win.

Nineteen ninety-one it was. The Argos, with all-time CFL quarterbacking great Matt Dunigan distributing the ball to the likes of Rocket Ismail and Pinball Clemons, were headed for a Grey Cup victory as they went to Hamilton for the Labour Day game. The Ticats came in to the game at something like 1-8 and if memory serves, the coaching duties were being handled by a group of local high school shop teachers. So naturally, the Ticats won 48-24.

There's probably some deeper meaning for why the Ticats, when they are at their lowest, always find a way to give those Argos a Labour Day lickin'. Maybe it's intended to remind Toronto-types that just because they live in the biggest city in the country, and they're smarter and better-looking than everyone else, that doesn't mean they get to tell the rest of Canada how to live, thank you very much.

Maybe it helps Ticats fans maintain the canard that they have the roughest, toughest, meanest team in the CFL. It reaffirms, for 24 hours at least, how despite the ridicule from the rest of Canada, they are right to live in the city that most Canadians view as Toronto's dysfunctional neighbour, who is prone to acute attacks of flatulence. (That's not my personal view of Hamilton, so save the hate mail.)

The friggin' Ticats are gonna win. Forget that their quarterback, Jason Maas, completed a pass that lost 11 yards last weekend. It will go down that way for reasons that are bigger than the game.

As for the coaches who were let go, offensive co-ordinator Joe Paopao (pictured above) and O-line coach Kani Kauahi, both were with the mothballed Ottawa Renegades last season before getting the bum's rush by the team's inept former owners. So as far as Paopao is concerned, feel free to speculate that bouth are about to make a triumphant return to the nation's capital with Ottawa CFL Team Version 3.0.

That's another post, though. For now, it's the friggin' Ticats are gonna win.

Related:
Slotback Slog: Toronto Argonauts (June 16)
Slotback Slog: Hamilton Tiger-Cats (June 15)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.