Stamps vs. Flames: A debate on which team represents the spirit of Calgary best
Heated sports debate tackled and checked by our Unconventional Panel
On Sunday night, the Calgary Stampeders face-off against the Ottawa Redblacks for Canadian football supremacy.
Meanwhile, the Calgary Flames are trying to string together some wins on the road.
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- Dine like it's 1979 — Vintage Stamps cookbook serves up Grey Cup snack ideas
- No horsing around: Stamps, Redblacks won't have familiar mascots at Grey Cup
With both teams competing for our attention, we decided to tackle a heated sports question on this week's Unconventional Panel.
Below is an edited transcript of a conversation between Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray and our panelists Balfour Der, Manjit Minhas and Andrew Phung.
Q: Which team better represents the spirit of Calgary — the Flames or the Stamps?
Andrew: The Stamps. Literally anyone can try out for the Calgary Stampeders. They have open tryouts. There's no open tryouts for the Flames.
Balfour: The Flames. They're trying hard. They're not doing well, but they're trying very hard, which is so much like Calgary.
Andrew: The Calgary Flames — Because They Tried. That should be their new slogan!
Balfour: I'm a fair weather fan so I don't like sitting in McMahon when it's -30 C in the wind, freezing to death watching the game. That ain't fun to me.
Manjit: To go to a football game in this country is truly Canadian because … you sit out there in the summer and enjoy a cold beer [and] you freeze with them in the winter. You are experiencing Calgary at its worst and its best — even with the weather.
Q: But Manjit, wasn't ice hockey a Canadian invention?
Manjit: I believe hockey was our game, but it's been stolen.
Andrew: Hockey is our game, but the Stampeders represent our city.
Manjit: Why is hockey our game though? We haven't won, or we don't even look like we're winning as a country, never mind as a city, in decades.
Q: So Manjit, what you're saying is we only back winners?
Manjit: Yeah!
Balfour: So now we're the City of Champions like Edmonton?
Q: The Flames face teams from New York, Chicago and L.A. all the time. What would happen if the Stamps went up against an NFL team?
Balfour: They'd be destroyed
Andrew: But it would be amazing to watch.
With files from the Calgary Eyeopener
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