2005 Season - Calgary Stampede Tournament August

BC stamps it authority in Alberta

It was with great anticipation and excitement that close to 20 Vancouver footy players piled into 3 mini-vans for the long road trip to Calgary last Friday. After watching a combined Calgary/Red deer team come over to Vancouver in July and take our BC Footy Cup over the border, our players were keen to go over to Alberta and do the same to them. The Stampede Cup was billed as the best from Alberta playing the best of British Columbia. BC went over as a combo of three teams – The Vancouver Cougars, Burnaby Eagles and the Victoria Lions.

A few of the boys had already arrived in Calgary via other means as the large convey hit the road on Friday morning. As expected when travelling through the highlands of BC and Alberta, the scenery was magnificent along the way, especially going through the Rockies near Banff. Despite the long trip, the time seemed to fly by. It didn’t hurt that a few flicks were watched on the in-van DVD players or that more than the odd beer was consumed along the way.

We all finally got in around 10-11pm and it was only right that everyone met up at the Melrose Bar on Electric Avenue for a few pre-match bevies and some pre-game discussion and analysis. After arriving to bed at varying hours it was off to the ground for a 1pm start the next day.

After the odd mistaken turn here and there (God Stu….you iiiidddiiottt), the boys finally cruised into Marlborough Park at around midday for the 1.30pm start. The ground was in much better nick than it was 2 years ago, and it looked like the large rocks scattered throughout the ground were a thing of the past.

A fairly decent sized crowd had turned up and it didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful day. The Calgary boys had also done a great job at drumming up some media interest with Global TV and a couple of newspaper reporters out in force.

BC Co-Captains Luscious Louie and Glamour Boy Vargo won the toss and the BC boys were kicking with the slight breeze in the first quarter. If there was any advantage, you couldn’t really tell as from the opening bounce, the Alberta boys took the bull by the horns and shot away to a 3 goal lead. The BC boys looked a little flat footed. It seemed quite plausible that a few of them might have been feeling the effects of chasing Calgary crumpet the night before.

A few key positional changes and with some fresh legs on the field, the game began to shift and BC was beginning to gain the impetuous. Luscious, Cashie, Macca, Lappo, Nick and Simon were controlling the centre and forcing the ball deep into the Cougars forwardline where Grills and Dickins were dominating. When the ball did get down to the backline, Steveo, Craig and MyK Aussie were crushing the Alberta forwards.

By three quarter time, BC had a slight 1 point lead but that didn’t tell the story of their increasing dominance. With a bench of 6 or so players, BC was able to constantly keep fresh legs on the ground and it showed. In the last quarter, Cashie Jnr (who had dominated at CHB) was moved to the forwardline and promptly snagged two goals, while Campo (determined to pass Handyman on the goal-kicking ladder), begged to be put into full forward and responded with a major of his own.

In the end, the BC boys kept Alberta almost scoreless in the last quarter and romped home to a big 30 point win and the Stampede Cup !!

Game highlights….

Ted Murray comes of age – one of the Cougar bests was Teddy who made a couple of huge plays during the game including a great mark in front of the crowd, and a couple of huge defensive plays. He was unlucky at one stage not to snag a nice running goal after taking a grab, playing on, baulking an opponent and then slotting home a kick that narrowly missed the goals.

Up there Craigzaly - Craig Attwood continuing to do what he does best – taking speckies at full-back. Seriously, he must have launched for at least 3-4 and pulled in a couple. None completely up to his usual stratospheric heights this time, but he was up there.

I love you Timmy – for most of the game, Cashie seemed to have a “semi” at the thought of playing against one of his Rugby idols - Tim Brasher, former Australian Rugby League Full Back and now sometimes Calgary footy player. Despite playing a stellar game, Cashie seemed more pleased with a huge tackle he laid on Timmy late in the last quarter…

There’s more than one way to get on the highlight reel… In the first five minutes of the game, already nursing a dodgy hammy, Cougars forward Vargo received a smack to the eye (still questionable if it was deliberate or not) which immediately swole up like a Pakistani marquee and forced him out of the game. The pain was somewhat relieved later in the night when he heard that he was a feature of the Global TV Sports News highlights because of it.

I can move slow too – Over the weeks we’ve become accustomed to watching Big John lope around the field at a snails pace but still seeming to regularly get his hands on the ball. This time it was Cashie Jnr. For the first half it looked like he was still asleep, but whenever the ball went near him and his opponent (the dangerous Chrisso for Alberta) he was punching hard or in front taking the big grab. He all but cut Chrisso out of the game. Then when he got moved to the full forwardline in the last quarter he proceeded to step up and slot home two goals.

BC – 11.11.77 to Alberta 6.11.47
Goals – Cashie Jnr 2, Troy 2, Grills 2, Randy 1, Damo 1, Shane 1, Luscious 1, Steveo 1.
Best (from) – Cashie Snr, Craig, Teddy, Troy Macca, Steveo, mYk Aussie,
Cashie Jnr, Grills, Luscious, Lappo.

After the main game, a few of the BC boys backed up and played a mini 30 minute game to give some of the Alberta boys a run who didn’t get to play in the main game. Apparently the Alberta coaching hierarchy doesn’t share the same philosophy as BC that everyone should get a good run in the main game no matter what the skill level, for the good of the game…

Some highlights –

The slowest flashy run ever – goes to Troy Macca. After getting the ball near the full back line, Macca teared up towards the wing taking a bounce seemingly ever 4 steps. By the time he got to the wing he’d had a least 10 bounces, only to be caught trying to baulk and immediately called for holding the ball – classic.

The hobbit ruckman – given the non serious nature of the game, Campo was thrown into the ruck. It wasn’t until the 5 ball-up that Campo got excited because – yes, he’d actually touched the ball that time.

The hobbit forward – Cashie. Running around like a little terrier, Cashie managed to snag four goals – all within 2 metres of the goals…but no Cashie, they don’t count to the goal-kicking ladder.

After the games, the boys proceeded en masse to celebrate in style at Alberta’s sponsor pub (the Flying Emu) for a few celebratory beverages, and a pie and chips. The Alberta boys were generous enough to fill the cup with a full bottle of Jagermeister that was consumed in record time. The $11 quadruple shot drinks went down a treat as well. It wasn’t long before the call went out for all and sundry to head over to Cowboys (a favourite haunt) and carve up the dancefloor there.

The next morning there were surprising few sorry heads as we packed up in the vans and headed home. Not much to report on the long journey other than the classic mimbo moment suffered by each of the boys in the van consisting of – Luscious, Simon, Cashie Jnr, Nick, Lappo and Macca. Only a few km’s out of Merritt Stu received a call that the boys had managed to run out of petrol and were proceeding to push their car down the highway. Pretty funny stuff and it was very tempting to just drive by, honk the horn and wave goodbye….we didn’t though.

All up a sensational and successful trip.

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