First up, a 2-day visit in Unity, SK (population ~ 2,500). A good friend of mine from BC lives there, and suspecting that he was going to spring Roughrider t-shirts on us we came prepared - with a Passaglia BC Lions t-shirt! Talk about a preemptive first-strike, eh?
We even brought BC Lion lanyards for his daughters... heh. He was a good sport about it and wore it in town, I don't think the liquor store employee was too impressed but it was priceless - I gladly took the 'blame' for corrupting my friend. My friend works for Co-op and each Friday they wear their green t-shirts; his co-worker looked at the Lions shirt, cheered, and gave me a high-five - turns out he's a closet Lions fan in the middle of green country. Yes, I wore my Riders t-shirt during his backyard BBQ... he was a good sport about the Lions shirt, I can do the same!The town itself is loaded with Rider pride... I'd say 90% of the storefronts and businesses had Rider signage or banners. Apparently the local credit union was completely decked out in Rider green... I almost felt like putting on my Lions shirt, walking in and asking to open an account for $13 (heh heh!); but alas they were closed for the day (at 1:00 on Saturday, no less!). Maybe next time! The main street of town (called Main Street, of course) had yardage markers painted down it and green paint in the center intersection - they're trying for the Riderville contest, in case that wasn't evident. When we were in the grocery store and walked past the watermelons, I stopped and yelled out to him "Look, DIY helmets!".
No matter what store you entered, there was a Rider souvenir stand in it with plenty of merchandise - grocery store, liquor store, drugstore, gas station... you name it. I wouldn't be surprised if the hospital had stuff too ("Need a green transplant? Have it done while you're here!"). This carried on pretty well everywhere we visited, from Unity to Balcarres... quite the marketing effort. Of course, I get the whole "publicly supported team" concept, but when you see the scale of support in person it's quite remarkable. We even walked into the local Fields store only to hear the radio behind the counter tuned to the pre-game coverage.
All of this support didn’t seem contrived or forced – it was interesting to see and I thought to myself how or if that scale of support could be generated for the Lions. Of course, it’s already been discussed here about the various factors that determine fan support, such as the presence of other major league teams in the same city, etc.; and I don’t want to rehash them all here. I just thought it was an interesting facet of our trip, and wanted to relay it here. Overall our trip was very pleasant, and I'm glad I got to experience another part of the country.
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