A good mascot can get people a little louder than they planned, and overall represent a fair part of their organization’s game-day experience. The good mascot design doesn’t feel like a guy paid by the team to jump around in an expensive suit, but a natural symbol for their fans to feel pride and inspire some noise. With that said, here’s a look at my opinion of the CFL’s mascots.
WINNIPEG - A-
This sucks… I can barely think of anything horrible to say about them. Two mascots, with an interesting twist, and somewhat developed and distinct personalities? Well this is a horrible start…
SASKATCHEWAN - B+
I’m sorry, but it’s stuff like this makes me love the CFL. I am a sucker for an small-town/underdog story, and the humility that most Canadians have. Their mascot isn’t some loud, chest-pounding beast claiming superiority. It’s a damn squirrel. Not only that, but name ‘Gainer’ in ‘Gainer the Gopher’ is anagram of “Regina”.
CALGARY - B
They have what I think probably is the best individual ‘mascot’ per se, the Stampeder Touchdown Horse. Then they have a furry mascot called ‘Ralph the Dog’. In a slightly related note, there’s someone who apparently has felt the need to not only blog the life of their dog, Ralph, but also to pay the hosting fees for a dot com address. Lets make this poor bugger’s day and take a look at the videos he uploaded of his dog chasing a laser pointer and humping a stuffed animal (seriously!) @ http://www.ralphthedog.com
HAMILTON - B- Okay, so maybe the blandness of having your mascots be a tiger and a wilcat doesn’t set yourself for incredible marks… The names “T.C” and “Stripes” aren’t exactly groundbreaking… So how does this rank in the top half of the league? ‘Cause I’m a homer. Plain and simple. Sadly I think you may have to get used to it. The actual design of them is pretty good, and unlike the Eskis they are actually wearing CFL jerseys rather than some bland looking piece of cloth draped over their upper bodies.
EDMONTON - C-
I like the ideas.. I don’t like the execution. Take a look at Nanook. So he/she is all dressed officially, thigh pads and all, and then wears that weird sweater instead of an Eskis jersey? Weaaaaaaaaaak.
MONTREAL - Touché and Blitz - D-
Why bother having two mascots that seem to be exactly the same? With this lazy of an effort, they might as well just have Youppi! cover the duties (note: the writer of this article may have bias towards Youppi! being awesome, due to, well, Youppi! being awesome and having the cajones to do this and reading stories like this).
TORONTO - Jason D
This is why I don’t like the idea of having a non-animal. You could be the Toronto ‘guys with chainsaws for arms’ and your mascot would still have that goofy cartoonish face. That face just gives off the vibe of being created by some PR firm rather than being a natural progression of the passion from fans. So why does Jason get a (barely) passing grade? Partially because of fact of an ‘argonaut’ at least being a unique team name and partially because of this, but definitely not because of this.
BC – Leo the Lion F
… by far the worst effort in the league. This poor lion would have to jump through circles of fire (and do a much better job than Wild Wing) to get much respect. ‘Lions’, yeah, that’s a real original name, considerring I waded through too many pages of google search ‘Leo the Lion’ waiting for a CFL link…
