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Where to Watch the Grey Cup in Portland (2010)

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Grey Cup 2010Hang on to your toque and prepare your poutine, the 98th Grey Cup takes place this Sunday, November 28 2010. The Grey Cup is Canada’s Super Bowl – the Canadian Football League’s championship game.

In a rematch of last year’s Cup, defending champions Montreal Alouettes face the Saskatchewan Rough Riders. This year’s Grey Cup game will be played at the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Alberta. And the half time entertainment is provide by Bachman & Turner!

Canadian Football and American Football share a pedigree, and mostly follow the same rules. Some of the difference:

  • The field in Canadian football is 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, not the 100 yards by 53⅓ yards used in American football.
  • Canadian football plays 3 downs, not 4.
  • In Canadian football all offensive backfield players, except the quarterback, can be in motion when the ball is snapped.

There are other differences too, but these are some of the most obvious to American football fans. As a casual observer (I grew up watching American football but have only watched maybe half a dozen Canadian football games in my entire life) my take is that the Canadian football game is faster paced and higher scoring and there is more passing of the ball and less running. Compared to the NFL, CFL football players are smaller and faster. I don’t care much for gridiron football, but if I had to choose between NFL and CFL I’d go Canadian every time.

Where to watch in Portland

Again this year the Canada America Society of Oregon has organized a viewing at 3:30pm, Sunday November 28th at Macadam’s Bar & Grill (5833 SW Macadam Ave).

Please leave a comment below if you know of other spots the catch the game in Portland!

The Globe and Mail gives a shout out to Portland Poutine

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The Globe and MailIn the The Globe and Mail, Saturday, May 22nd 2010 edition, John Allemang writes about the world wide reach of Canada’s favorite late night snack in: Poutine: Quebec’s accidental delicacy becomes global haute cuisine

It’s official: Poutine is a global player.

The world poutine-eating championships being held Saturday in Toronto – as a high-cal appetizer to a Toronto FC soccer game – are as good a sign as any that Quebec’s down-home artery clogger has finally arrived on the international stage.

Chicago, San Francisco, and of course New York; you can find poutine in more and more places throughout the world. And Portlanders may have more poutine choices than any other city not in Canada. I spoke to Mr. Allemang about my, and Portland’s, poutine obsession for the article.

In Portland, Ore., there are at least a dozen locales that play to poutine cravings, including the Potato Champion, which boasts of being the city’s only late-night French-fries cart and tempts homebound drinkers with vegetarian and even vegan poutine, as well as the standard version made with free-range chicken stock and artisanal curds.

How does an Oregon city come to be a force in the dish’s globalization? “There’s a big foodie culture here,” says software engineer David Strom, author of the Portland Poutine website. “There’s also an irony addiction in Portland. In the end, poutine’s the perfect junk food. … You’ve got gravy, you’ve got French fries, you’ve got cheese – what’s not to like?”

Mr. Strom traces his passion for poutine to a visit he made to Montreal in 2005: The motto of his website is “We have much to learn from Canada.” Montreal’s reputation as a lively tourist destination is in large part responsible for poutine’s rise in the food world.

Read the rest of the article for more on poutine’s march around the world.

This story was cross-posted on PortlandPoutine.com.

A Dream of Cascadia, in The Guardian

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The GuardianIn the latest issue of The Guardian, columnist Peter Preston writes about Cascadia: A World Away From Texas [can I get an atheist amen!?]

One (Olympic) flame dies – but maybe another flame flickers back into life. All hail Cascadia, the nationalist dream of a new, free land that puts the environment, culture and liberal values first? Don’t laugh (though don’t get too carried away either). The name may sound somewhere between patent water softener and Prisoner of Zenda. The logic of the idea, however, has plenty of hard thinking behind it.

In the piece he briefly explores the history of the idea, and the obvious geographical arguments: Portland, Seattle and Vancouver are an almost continuous metropolitan belt. Think Leeds to Manchester to Liverpool.

Cascadia FlagHe exaggerates just a little when he declares that culturally and politically, big chunks of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia have more in common with each other than any of them have with Texas.

And the values of politics, almost of instinctive belief, are consistent too. Abortion, euthanasia, co-ops, gay marriage – even socialism as a word that may sometimes mutter its name? Cascadia might sit quite happily just outside Stockholm. Bush, Cheney, Fox News and Tea Party Texas are a world away.

But the political reality, he points out, is that Americans are often patronisingly racist about Canada [<- Ha, he spells like a Canadian!], and stubbornly resistant to constitutional upheaval. But he does make some good points . . .

Yet why, pray, is the Canadian way – or the Cascadian way – any more outlandish than the Mad Hatter’s tea party antics currently transfixing Washington DC? And why is constitutional change, as opposed to rightwing rage, such a forbidden American subject?

Read the rest at The Guardian, and make sure to check out the lively debate in the comments (if only to confirm that much of the comments on British newspaper articles are as troll-y as those in American papers).

November 29: Grey Cup 2009

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Update: 2010 Grey Cup Viewing in Portland

2009_Grey_Cup-200The 97th Grey Cup takes place this Sunday, November 29th.  There’s no better time to whip up a batch of homemade poutine!

For those not suffering from Canadaphilia, the Grey Cup is the Canadian Football League’s championship game; think of it as the Canadian Super Bowl.

Canadian Football and American Football share a pedigree, and mostly follow the same rules. Some of the difference:

  • The field in Canadian football is 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, not the 100 yards by 53⅓ yards used in American football.
  • Canadian football plays 3 downs, not 4.
  • In Canadian football all offensive backfield players, except the quarterback, can be in motion when the ball is snapped.

There are other differences too, but these are some of the most obvious to American football fans. As a casual observer (I grew up watching American football but have only watched maybe half a dozen Canadian football games in my entire life) my take is that the Canadian football game is faster paced and higher scoring and there is more passing of the ball and less running. Compared to the NFL, CFL football players are smaller and faster. I don’t care much for gridiron football, but if I had to choose between NFL and CFL I’d go Canadian every time.

Two years ago I searched, nearly in vain, for a place to watch the game in Portland. We finally tracked down a cable channel broadcast, and several fellow Canadaphiles and I joined a group of Canadian ex-pats at the McMenamins on NE Broadway to watch the game. Last year a Canadian friend invited us over to her place. The homemade poutine and copious amounts of Canadian beer soothed the pain of watching the Stampeders defeat our beloved Alouettes.

But Montreal is back! This year’s finals is between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Montreal Alouettes. The game takes place in Calgary, and will be broadcast in Portland on CSN, Comcast Cable channel 37 at 3:30pm.

Where to watch the 2009 Grey Cup in Portland, Oregon: