Welcome to Touchdown Atlantic, Canadian football’s annual foray to the East Coast, with the notion of one day planting a 10th team.
This year’s game is brought to you by a franchise that employs the dirtiest player in the league and the head coach who continues to defend him, even when his cheap shots cross the line into racial discrimination.
The CFL, where “Diversity Is Strength.”
Except when it’s not.
We’re talking about the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Toronto’s opponent at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., on Saturday.
The Riders aren’t exactly wrapping themselves in glory with how they’re handling defensive lineman Garrett Marino, who’s rung up more transgressions in 12 games than most players ring up in a five-year career.
Marino’s latest antics cost him suspensions totalling four games, the longest in league history.
This time around, he questioned the heritage of Ottawa quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, delivered a dangerous hit to an opposing lineman, then sent Masoli to the operating table with a dirty, low hit – all in the same game.
A full five days later, Marino spewed out an apology.
Check that: the Riders coughed up a carefully worded statement and slapped Marino’s name on it.
Actually, it wasn’t all that carefully worded.
The Wednesday statement said Marino wouldn’t be appealing any part of the suspension, that his actions have no place in the game, that he now understands his “insensitive and culturally stereotypical” comments were hurtful to his peers and that he stands with all his teammates, “regardless of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.”
When a player is feeling heat from his own teammates, you know he’s crossed the line.
Then there was the sign-off: “I will not be commenting on this matter again…”
Marino never has commented on “this matter” – he was shielded from questions after Friday’s game and ever since.
Only after Masoli posted a message on social media late Tuesday saying he had yet to receive an apology did the Riders come up with their own statement of apology, and Marino’s, on Wednesday.
You wait that long, nobody’s buying it.
Making matters worse, Riders head coach Craig Dickenson called the portion of the suspension that dealt with the insensitive remarks “a bit of a reach,” suggesting it might be worth appealing.
Masoli’s Tuesday night Twitter statement called out Dickenson for his “poor and uninformed excuses” for a player whose behaviour has no place in the game.
“The worst of it is the vile and disrespectful type of behaviour and racial insults that were made towards me more than once,” Masoli posted. “In the CFL we say our diversity is our strength, so there should be no place for the racial hate. It’s been investigated and confirmed by the CFL and should not be tolerated — on or off the field.
“It’s sad that the hate and racist attitudes and racial insults are going to be punished with a slap on the wrist.”
Two games for a dirty hit, one game for a racial slur. That’s quite the progressive message the league is sending out.
Earlier Tuesday, Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea decried how the ugly incident and its fallout are taking away from the marquee matchup between two undefeated teams, his Bombers and Calgary, this week.
The stench of it will waft all the way to Nova Scotia, where it’ll greet the Riders as they land for what’s supposed to be a celebration of the three-down game.
Dickenson may be leaving Marino behind, but it won’t be as easy to distance himself from the visual images of the cheap shot and Marino’s celebration of it as he walked off the field to cheers in Regina, not to mention his own mishandling of the whole thing.
Ottawa receiver Nate Behar summed it up nicely that night.
“Anybody that cheers for that dude, supports that dude, cheers when he runs off the field flexing and all that stuff, I hope you find a way to sleep tonight,” Behar said. “The same dude yelling racist sh– in the bottom of a pile. I literally cannot believe what I witnessed. I know I’m gonna get fined and I literally don’t care.
“He (Masoli) has two beautiful children to support and you go through his shins and then get up flexing and calling him stuff that nobody should be calling anybody. That’s beyond any code on earth.”
Late Wednesday, the CFL and its players association released a joint statement saying they committed to a policy of zero tolerance towards any form of racial discrimination in their last collective bargaining agreement.
The statement also says they’ve agreed to strengthen their commitment “with urgency” and to further define the issues in order to make their stand more clear.
At least, that’s what I think it said.
As always, actions will speak much louder than words.
Enjoy Touchdown Atlantic, everyone.
pfriesen@postmedia.com
Twitter: @friesensunmedia
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