OT: Is this Bomber team the best ever?

[TheDeuce]

I was at that game. I was 13 years old, at at that time it was the worst thing I had ever experienced. To this day, it's my most painful sports memory.

I have many intense, painful memories of that day. I was sitting in the Salisbury House Kids' Zone (west side, south end) and for the playoff game they'd doubled the ticket prices, from $1 to $2, but I went anyway.

At the end of the game the Riders cheerleaders (they came with the team) walked past our zone and yelled insults and obscenities at us that I'd never heard before (remember, I was young). A bunch of grown women trash talking children. That was the day I learned to hate the Riders and their fans, and why I enjoyed it so much when in later years the Riders lost the Grey Cup with their too many men call, and also when we beat them in the 2019 Western Final as their final pass hit the crossbar. The arc of time is slow, but it moves towards justice. Also, karma is a bitch.

And it was a bullshit call by the refs in 1972.

Growing up I spent my summers at Manitou Beach in Saskatchewan so I've always had a soft spot for all things Saskatchewan - the Riders have been my second team since I was a kid but I came by it honestly.

That said, I was delighted when the Riders were called for the 13th man and lost the Grey Cup - I had bet on Montreal!



m.

 

[scelaton]

Recency bias is inevitable in threads like this, but still a fun question to ponder.

I was around (barely) for the later part of the Bud Grant/Ken Ploen era and as a young child remember everyone-- even my mother and aunts, who cared nothing about sports--talking about the Bombers at family gatherings. Later, I collected football cards in 5 cents packages with the rock hard slabs of bubble gum and traded them avidly. There was no NHL or WHA, no Hedberg or Hull, and no cable TV so the blue Bombers were it. But it was well-deserved popularity by any measure--they won 4 out of their 11 Grey Cups in that decade.

The dominant Bomber teams from the 80s come next. They are probably the closest thing to the Bomber D we see today but have plenty more playoff wins and Grey Cups to show for themselves. Tyrone West, Greg Battle and James West have been described as the best linebacking trio in CFL history.

This team is dominant in a league that has less parity and less overall prominence...but has an opportunity to make their own history. That script is not yet written.