B-Rod’s First Time

I grew up in a household where a certain member of my family was EXTREMELY passionate about sports, particularly Calgary based teams.  If you know the Baird family, you know what I’m talking about.  If you don’t, I’ll share some stories sometime.  My dad has had Flames season tickets since before the Saddledome was built and Stampeders tickets for almost as long.  As a result, not only did I get to go to many games (he had 2 Flames tickets, so we rotated who would go to games and Stamps games we went to as a whole family), but I was a Calgary obsessed fan as well.  I was known in my grade as the biggest Flames fan ever, I wrote poems for the Calgary teams, I asked to get jerseys for my birthday or Christmas presents, I put stickers on my face during the playoffs, I was excited to spend a New Year’s Eve waiting outside the locker room for the players to come out so they could sign my jersey, and I wrote fan mail to Joe Nieuwendyk (and to this day can still remember how to spell/pronounce his last name!!).

This was a happy day for me!  I had plenty ‘o Flames gear, but I was entering the teenage years, so my love for faded denim (and the cool factor that went along with this in the 80’s) was starting to overcome my love for my Calgary sports gear.

The upside of this arrangement is that I got to go to these games which for the most part (with some exceptions) was pretty fun.  The downside is that being a rather sensitive child, the passionate mood that ran through the house on game days eventually burned me out.  To this day I cringe a little bit if I’m close to a TV and the sports news is on.  I will occasionally watch big games like the Olympic gold medal round, but for the most part I’m pretty happy not being a part of the sports watching world in any way.

So, when I met B-Rod and not only did he not play hockey as a youth, but he had no amount of interest in ever watching any big sports event, I knew he was the guy for me!  However, when my brother asked if we wanted to spend some family time together at the Labour Day Classic, I decided to bite the bullet and introduce B-Rod to a big part of my youth.  It would not only be B-Rod’s first football game, but our 2 year old niece’s first game as well.  How can you pass up a milestone like that?

B-Rod tailgating it!

Before the game, we played some games and got matching Labour Day Classic tats!

Me and AJ are old pros . . . . . . we’ve been to these things before!

B-Rod and Maleah – the noobs at the game!

Most of the crew we were with (minus the Eskimo fan behind us & my parents who have season tickets, so they were in a better location.)  Doesn’t everyone look super excited?

Can you tell B-Rod and I don’t quite fit in . . . . we don’t have the PONU  gear!

The kids “enjoying” the game : )

After the game, we were reminiscing about games gone past.  My mom remembers how we were one of the only kids that were in attendance at those games.  My brother remembers watching all of the extremely drunk people and the many fights that broke out in the stands.  I remember being one of the few fans at the games (there were many years where the Stamps were not good!) sitting in our winter coats while it was snowing and freezing my arse off.  Funny how different things stand out in our memories.

CONGRATULATIONS B-ROD!!  After 10+ years, you finally completed a Baird test and made it through your first CFL game!!