Anyone catch Rod Petersen on the FAN960 this morning, +-8:15 or so? Wow, for the voice of the riders he had some very disparaging things to say about rider fans. I'll try to find a link to the interview but some of the items he spoke about:
Ridernation is out of control, taking this thing way too seriously.
People stalk him for info, pester him at his gym when all he wants to do is run with his ipod on.
One guy flagged him down in his station-marked SUV, Rod thought he needed help, turned out he wanted to talk about QBs.
He's embarrassed with the drunken antics of rider fans in western stadiums, blames it on a young generation who have forgotten what being a league fan, versus a tema fan, is all about.
Would rather stick with just covering the Pats, but can't see how he gets out now from the Rider job.
...All in all, sounded kind of grumpy about the whole rider fanbase...
...and before any rider fan comes strolling in here guns ablazing this isn't some shot that I'M taking, this is one of your own...
...here's the website of the station http://www.fan960.com/ but they don't seem to have this morning's audio-bits on it yet, only updated to yesterday...
While I didn't listen to the link, I can't see any of what you said being false...Saskatchewan isn't referred to as a "fishbowl" for nothing, so it's no surprise he'd be "stalked" around town. I would agree with your snapshot of his statement that the younger generation forgets what being a league fan means...many people, from my own experience, use Rider games as an excuse to get drunk and make an ass of themselves, rather than to enjoy a game...damn shame...[/shaking head]
...I don't think it is fair to paint the whole group with a wide brush, I've sat next to many good rider fans of all ages...generally the older ones are the wiser ones but I have some friends here from Sask that are in the late 20s early 30s and they aren't nutjobs when it comes to the game...but the increase in police and security for the game tomorrow (40 extra cops and 50 extra security is what I heard) has to say something in and of itself....it must royally pi$$ a good fan off to be chucked in with the bad ones, but it must be up to the good ones to sort the bad ones out too, a bad rider fan certainly isn't going to take advice from a fan wearing different colours...'cept maybe Hamilton colours, the geographically displaced Ticat fans are like the yodas of the CFL, not sure yet why, I'm still working on that theory...
I couldn't find the interview on the link. But I will state the obvious. Every team has good and bad fans. The recent successes of the Riders has increased their fan base on a quantitive basis. Are some of them idiots? Yes. Are some of them solid fans with a good knowledge base of the game? Yes. Is this any different than some Stampeder fans I know who admit that they also have fans who just go to the game to get drunk and don't know when to cheer and when not to? No.
...I couldn't find the link this morning either, they still have only thursday's content shown...agreed on the fan content though, there are bad apples in every basket...
...gotta say, that was a fun game last night, the fans of red, green and neutral was all well behaved and the bantering was friendly and spirited...good game for the riders too, they played very well...Rod has to be feeling much better today than he was a few days ago...
Maybe the circus was in town last week at the Pederson household......