Hello.

The moral of this post is to always carry your gear with you. If you don't read the rest of this post, please do me the favour of always having your gear with you.

On to the story; this could be long.

First, let me say that last Sunday, November 21, 2004 was the best day of my sporting life. I attended my first Grey Cup in the nation's capital, Ottawa! It was absoltely perfect Canadian football weather. (Weather that Brett Favre and his comrades would love to have every home game.) There a slightly more than slight chill in the air - just enuogh to remind everyone that we're Canadian. And we're all there drinking Canadian beer, cheering for either the Argos or the Lions. The Argos win in a fantastic game, and the officiating was fantastic!

This weekend was the Vanier Cup weekend. The OFSAA Bowls (provincial champions: see previous thread about State Playoffs) and the Vanier Cup (CIS crown game, NC2A equivalent) were held. To top it off, the Vanier Cup Dinner was Friday night. I went back down to Hamilton today to take pictures with a nice 6.0 megapixel camera - I'm kinda the photographer of my association. Some crew shots, some action shots - it's all good.

I watched part of the ending of the 1st half of the National Capital Bowl. While in the dressing room at half time, we meet the crew of the NC Bowl, and say our Hellos. After this game was the Western Bowl, the last tackle football game in Ontario in 2004. The WH for the NC Bowl asks who's WH'ing the WB. It's a guy named Dave. (My name is Mike.) He says, "Dave, you gotta go in, I've done something to my achilles. I can't do the second half." We're all kinda shocked - the second crew anyways. Dave starts to change into his gear, when two powers that be (both on the exec of the provincial officiating authority) decide to make a better suggestion. Keep Dave out of the NC Bowl so that he can run his pre-game for the Western Bowl, and send me in to WH the second half of the National Capital Bowl. (I brought my gear just in case.) From what people tell me, the look on my face was priceless. Needless to say, I was all stunned, happy, in awe, and estatic at the same time. I go out and give my best. I received excellent reviews.

Then I come back into the changeroom and am told to keep my stuff on. Now I am *really really* confused. Turns out that a gentleman travelling from quite some distance had not yet arrived at the stadium. I guess he arrives 10 minutes before game time. He was politely told that he had been replaced. So I go down to the Steel City to take some pictures, and I ended up getting two assignments.

The best part was, after finally meeting ref18, Julian, in person Friday night at the Vanier Cup dinner, was that I got to work with him during the Bowl games. He was also on the crew.

I also was able to work with my local friend and official, Dave on the WB. I had some friends in the stands, and two people I highly respect were there to speak up when a fill-in was needed and neither one hesitated to bring me in.

For all this, I am thankful. From my 1st Grey Cup to officiating the last tackle football game in Ontario is 2004 - all in 8 days.

Congrats JR.

Keeping equipment in our vehicles during the season is great advice. Thanks for sharing your story to solidify it for the rest of us.

One more thing to add to this, Mike you did an awesome job in both games. (I was gonna say kick ***, but you can see how the word *** is censored out ;))



Oh ya, one other thing, I sent an e-mail to the guys who taped the game, and am waiting for a response.

[Edited by ref18 on Nov 29th, 2004 at 08:15 AM]

Great story, and congrats! :)

Is there anywhere, on the vast net of information, that we could see some of your pics?

Mike, did you take one of the slips of paper for the site with the crew photo?? If you did, could you send it my way?? Thanks.

That's funny! I just logged on to ask you the same question!

Too much!

My local association website is www.wwcfoa.ca. there are pics there of our county finals, and of the recent Under 17 Canada Cup.

As for pics for the OFSAA bowls, I should be getting some soon.

I just called home and my housemate found the info for me:

www.ontariodigital.com

There are some pretty good pictures up there.

I got a response from Cable 14, and they said that they only filmed the Golden Horeshoe Bowl and the Metro-Bowl, and replayed them on Sunday at 12. :(


My next suggestion would be contacting the schools that played, usually they tape the game.

Reply to them that they taped the wrong game! I can't believe they bailed on an OT game.

I guess there wasn't enough local interest in the game for them to send out a full crew to tape it. It's too bad, it was a hell of a game.

Are those flags orange?

Orange Flags, Stirrups over our socks and our referee's hat has a black brim with black piping.

I think those are most of the uniform differences north of the border.

There is one other thing, we must have white shoelaces on our black shoes.

I think that's it.

I remember the "stirrup days". Had those when I started. Most Canadian officials seem to have a different kind of stirrup though, a "longer" one, if you understand what I mean. I could see some "normal" (for me, that is) stirrups on some pics though.

Personally, I'm glad we went to the one-piece sock. Looks better, I think.

That part with the shoelaces, that was a joke right? I know we're talking Canadian footie, but it ain't hockey!

If you were looking at the pics of the national capital bowl then you'll see that one of the members of the stick-crew are wearing the one piece sock (yours truely) I changed into my stirrups before the Western Bowl. All the layers of socks and stirrups proved insulation and support to the muscles, something that you don't get with the one piece sock.