Quote:
Originally Posted by browna
Nevermind that the Esks are right up there with the Oilers now for terrible PR and a gong show of drama and backstabbing within the organization. But Jones remembering the glory days of Hugh Campbell intimidating the rest of the league is hard for Terry to let go of.
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It's not just Terry Jones. It's the whole city. That era of success for both the Eskimos and the Oilers has given the fan base a swagger of arrogance that honestly prevents them from accurately understanding their place in the sporting world today. The proper reaction from Edmonton fans is to be angry at the current poor performance by their teams and utter incompetence of their front offices. Instead they dose themselves with memories (or for anyone younger than 40, video, audio, or manuscript memories), and actually defend their teams when the Toronto-centric media turns on them or when called out by other fans. It's honestly a negative feedback loop that will prevent them from even being mediocre because poor current performance is excused and even defended. Until Edmontonians recognize that their teams have as strong a brand today as Kodak or Blockbuster does, they will continue to watch awful sporting performances.
Since 1990 the Calgary Stampeders have 6 Grey Cups, 12 Grey Cup Appearances, and placed 1st in the division in the regular season 14 times. The Eskimos have won 4 cups, appeared in a Grey Cup 6 times and finished 1st in the division in the regular season 6 times. An entire generation of Eskimos fan only has primary experiences of generally being s***canned by the Stamps on the regular, yet somehow thanks to dinosaurs like Terry Jones reminding everyone of a bygone era of dominance you keep hearing crap like "the Eskimo way" and "Once an Eskimo, always an Eskimo" as if those credos should be held up as anything more than signalling ineptitude.
You know sometimes while on the job or elsewhere when you ask someone why they do things a certain way without seeing a good rationale why and they respond, "well we've always done it this way," That's Edmonton sports to a T. Edmonton: "Because we've always done it this way"!