CANADIAN FOOTBALL ROUND-UP: EXPLAINING THE MANITOBA/SASKATCHEWAN COROLLARY

This corner's dream matchups for the Grey Cup and the Vanier Cup are still in play.

At the outset of the CFL season the call here was that it would be a Toronto Argonauts-Saskatchewan Roughriders matchup in the Grey Cup on Nov. 19 in Winnipeg. It seemed at least plausible, if not an odds-on pick (that was, and is, Montreal against B.C.), but there was no matchup that would tick off 'Peggers more than Toronto playing the Roughiders, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' rivals.

The Vanier Cup, though, will be played six days later, Nov. 25, in Saskatoon at the home stadium of the Saskatchewan Huskies -- it's the first time Canada's university football championship will be played in the West. (There's another curveball to throw at the Yanks -- we actually decide our collegiate football champion on the field, but we do it after the pros do so.)

The U of S is still in the hunt, but there's a catch. They have to knock off the Manitoba Bisons, who are unbeaten and ranked No. 1 in Canada and will have home field on Saturday in the Canada West conference championship game. (So much for the Alberta Golden Bears pre-season pick, eh?)

So it could be the Riders playing in a Winnipeg-hosted Grey Cup, and a Manitoba playing in the first Vanier Cup held in Saskatchewan. Wouldn't that be rich.

Oh, and it was the Argos who eliminated the Bombers today with an improbable comeback win that, if it didn't involve divine intervention, did involve a Bishop -- Argos backup QB Michael Bishop, who came off the bench to throw two late touchdown passes and remind everyone that he's still in the CFL.

How do you explain the Manitoba-Saskatchewan corollary as it pertains to how the rest of the country relates to the rival Prairie provinces and their football teams? It's kind of like having a set of twins who are equally attractive and dateable, except one of them is prone to knocking over her/his water glass, usually right into your lap. So Saskatchewan is cute, Manitoba is just remote.

Poor Manitoba can't catch a break when it comes to gaining the Rest of Canada's approval. And there's nothing more any insecure Canadian wants than the approval of outsiders. Validation from within simply won't cut it. The province gets a bad rap; this Ontarian was never been happier in his professional life than I was during my time writing sports for the Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic.

Saskatchewan exists in the Canuck imagination as the definitive middle of nowhere. Outside the Prairies, the Riders seem to be every CFL fan's second-favourite team. The Bombers inspire no such underdog sympathy, although Winnipeg fans would point that has to do with the fact their team, unlike the Riders, has won more than two Grey Cups in the modern CFL era.

The perception of the two provinces' football teams spills over in CanCulture. Saskatchewan gets the equivalent of a 30-minute informercial in Monday night prime time each week thanks to the sitcom Corner Gas, where everyone is, for all their quirks and obsessiveness, shown to be eternally good-natured and content to live in tiny Dog River -- the one inside joke that only a Canadian would get is that one of the show's characters even moved there from Toronto. (Life imitates art: Saskatchewan, long a place people left to pursue opportunity, is starting to get some of its native daughters and sons back, and is now a "have province.")

Constrast that with the treatment Manitoba gets. In Miriam Toews' 2004 novel A Complicated Kindness, the protagonist, Nomi Nickel, wants nothing more than to get out of her rural Manitoba hometown, a small Bible Belt community hard by the U.S. border that she refers to as "the joke town in the joke province in the joke country."

Saskatchewan gets the cute-funny sitcom. Manitoba gets the bittersweet prose treatment.

As a result, it's Saskatchewan, who projects an ability to laugh at itself a bit, who has everyone wanting to join their party. That's a big part of why when the Riders are close to the Grey Cup, everyone hops on the bandwagon

(Cue the people in Saskatchewan who don't like Corner Gas: "Can't these Ontario know-it-alls talk about us without bringing up that damn show?" Well, no. It's all we know about Saskatchewan, along with Tommy Douglas, Gordie Howe, pro-monarchy sentiment and Colin Thatcher.)

Now Danny Barrett's Saskatchewan Roughriders have a chance to crash Winnipeg's Grey Cup party, if they can pull the upset next Sunday against the favoured B.C. Lions. It says here that you can stuff your stats and B.C.'s home-dome advantage. The Riders are always good for one fluke Grey Cup appearance a decade (see 1989 or 1997). The Riders are overdue after Paul McCallum (now a Lion) missed that easy field goal that would have sent them to the big game in 2004 -- against the Argos, no less.

Meantime, coach Brian Dobie's Bisons can spoil Saskatoon's Vanier Cup party -- just beat the Huskies and the Ontario champion in the Nov. 18 Mitchell Bowl national semifinal. Easier said than done, of course, but it's what we're rooting for here.

Whatever happens, one thing people in the two provinces can agree on about football: Alberta teams aren't winning anything this year. Yippie-kie-yay.

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