Saskatchewan is the proud home of Rider Nation, the rowdiest and most passionate football fans in all of Canada -- and hey, what other sports fans wear hollowed-out watermelons on their heads? It's no surprise that plenty of wild stories have emerged during the team's 100-year run. Featuring exclusive interviews with legendary former players and coaches, author Graham Kelly provides fresh insight into some of the defining moments in Roughrider history. A must-read for all those who bleed green and white: In 1948, the team suddenly switched its colours from red and black to green and white after a club executive bought two sets of football sweaters on sale in Chicago -- he got a price he couldn't pass up! The Banjo Bowl, the annual grudge match played a week after the Labour Day Classic, got its name in 2004 after Winnipeg Blue Bomber Troy Westwood called the people of Saskatchewan ''a bunch of banjo-pickin' inbreds''; the two teams now play for a $10,000 prize for charity. During his 16 years with the Riders, quarterback and coach Ron Lancaster held more than 20 CFL records and played a key role in the team's first-ever Grey Cup win in 1966. Relive the agony and the ecstasy of each of the Riders' Grey Cup victories and the disastrous mistakes that cost the team four additional championships, including the infamous 13th man boondoggle in 2009. Even when times are tough, they are certainly never dull. Who else began a play-off game before a half-empty stadium, only to finish with a full house? Or lost a game because of a thunderstorm? Or lost fan support because the general manager wouldn't take off his hat? Sometimes being a Rider fan hurts. even with a watermelon on your head!.
Saskatchewan Roughriders : The Players, the History and the Fans