{277} grey cup ring

this was a fun one! now that the bombers' chances of making the play-offs are over, we don't have the added stress of the post-season (well, at least that's how i'm choosing to see it--glass is half full!). some day the grey cup will be theirs again. the drought can't last forever...can it? it's like the red sox. so, below is my version of the grey cup ring. :) woot! i finished all 20 blue bomber game day names! it was tough!

and the original photo from the cfl's website:

{270} locker room

second last blue bomber game of the year! they are 5-11 right now and they are about 1,001 different scenarios that need to play out in order from them to make the play-offs. fingers crossed! game time is noon!

 

the original photo is below:

{262} game uniforms

found the original pic on wikipedia and it was the perfect pic for me to create my name! i just wish that the image was higher resolution. but i still love the result.

{256} the concussion

original photo courtesy of sportsnet.

we all saw this moment on TSN when buck pierce was on the phone calling upstairs shortly after a vicious hit that caused him to not only leave the game but to take time off the following week too. he put the towel over his head and when he lifted his hand holding the cup it was shaking like a leaf. it ended up raising two questions: can buck pierce stay healthy? how can quarterbacks be better protected?

buck pierce is a good guy. i really like him. i even like him as a quarterback! i want him to stay healthy and lead this team as he so badly wants to. i don't want him to get hurt anymore. unfortunately, the talk is leaning the opposite direction. sadness.

{251} football laces

thanks again to my awesome friends for their football ideas! this idea was courtesy of cara! and i love the result. the annoying thing is that i was left with that one space near the end so i had to create an exclamation mark. maybe it's not so bad! <--

{242} beer snake

the beer snake is synomomous with the winnipeg blue bombers. on july 9, 2010 it started in section "s" when everyone started stacking their beer cups together and it formed this massive snake. it was hilarious to watch from across the stadium.

of course, it was not hilarious for the folks who had beer dumped on them and cups thrown at their heads and so the beer snake was banned after that one eventful night. but, none of us who were there will ever forget it. so, my name is a beer snake in honour of that game. :)

(original photo courtesy of this website)

{234} sideline ad

is it the lack of football-related ideas? or the fact that my favourite football team is 2-9 right now and quite possibly in one of the worst slumps in franchise history? either way i am uninspired to make football "laurens" the past two weeks. i shall leave these entries blank but vow to fill them before the year is up. :)

well, putting a "help!" on facebook worked. i got a few ideas from friends and that spurned a few more of my own! so, i think i'll make it! woohoo! this name was suggested by tanya--thanks!

{227} nameplate

took a photo of QB, buck pierece, in the locker room and erased his name on the nameplate above his locker for my name! ;)

{222} field markers

blech. this idea started out so great and sounds amazing in theory but it did not turn out quite like i thought it would. so, it is what it is. last week was the labour day classic in regina and my beloved blue bombers lost 52-0. lol today's game is called the banjo bowl and we lost 23-22. so, improved but still not a win. oh, well. i'm ready to move on and get excited about next season.

{215} george and the LDC

well, what a moron i am. below is the picture i had posted for today. about 15 minutes later i finally noticed that it had nothing to do with my name! LOL what was i thinking?! so, here is the original, below is the actual name-inspired pic. :)

 

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it's time for the annual showdown between the bombers and the roughriders. even being in different divisions doesn't diminish the rivalry and great fun that is had at these back-to-back games (next week is the banjo bowl, a rematch). my dad and have driven out to regina for four of these games but after they lost the last 3 we attended, we stopped going. in fact, they haven't won since. ouch! but we always had such a great time travelling there and getting in on the shouting matches between our two teams.

and, since it also happens to be george's 4th birthday (and i'm missing it!!), i had to give a little shout-out to him as well. :)

{206} playbook

game day! let's see if the bombers can pull out two wins in a row (even if it is against the defending grey cup champs, the bc lions...). i'm optimistic! my fingers are crossed!

so, since it is time for another football-related post (geez, i have to do another 10 of these and i'm running out of ideas rapidly!), i decided to do a playbook name. last year, or the year before, the CFL held a contest and people could submit plays and then they could be chosen by the head coaches and actually used in real games. wouldn't it be awesome, if i'd submitted this one? i know it would have been the most psychotic and horrible play to run ever but it sure would've been fun to submit. :)

{198} press box pass

i had some pretty unbelievable experiences when i was in college and many (if not, most) were football-related. this was one of them. the grey cup festival was going to be in winnipeg in november 2006 and so i managed to get a job as a press box assistant for that year which would mean that i would also end up with a role during the grey cup festival later in the year.

the press box assistant role was simple. watch the game. make photocopies of stats. hand them out after each quarter. at the end of the game i (along with either sean or jordan) would go down to the dressing rooms and hand one of the team's staff the stats (yes, i had spent many an occasion in the dressing rooms--more stories about that for another time and another blog! lol).

you'll notice on this picture that the "en" are glued on. that's because the pass originally said "laurie" because my e-mail at that time was still spitting things out with my former name. so, that's what they had seen and that's what they added. i, of course, went home and added the "en" over top of the "ie" so it would be the name i wanted. just another one of those examples where the name change caused issues!

{185} football

well, game is over and we lost. boo. 1-5 we are. not great. but, that's how football and sports go, right? you win some and you lose some. we made it to the grey cup last year and we'll make it back there again another year. because barring some unforseeable circumstance in which we come back from our bye week as the 2011 bc lions, i don't think the grey cup is in our future for 2012. but, i love the team. i'll be there every week cheering them on.

i found a graphic of a cfl football and exchanged the "wilson" logo for my own name. :)

{177} roster

well, after going 0-4 to start this season, the blue bombers opened up their roster to anyone who would volunteer. ;) i was reading through the roster for some of the players' histories and i thought this would be a great opportunity for one of my names! so, using henoc muamba's profile as a template, i created one for myself.

oh my gosh. i feel so short, skinny and old compared to him. he's super cute. i'm such a cougar. :)

{169} trophy

last year my brother organized a football pool of which there were about 7 or 8 of us. i did quite well. i felt like i had drafted a good selection of players (having Anthony Calvillo on my team helped!) and so i ended up in 3rd place overall. my brother even got trophys from the thrift store and then put our names on them for the first three finishers. neat.

this year i am not doing so hot. i drafted buck pierce (big mistake) and adrian macpherson as my quarterbacks. macpherson won't even see the light of day because calvillo is a robot and never gets injured. then for my running backs i picked up chad simpson, carl volny and chris garrett. oh, that's great. simpson gets injured in week one. garrett gets injured in the pre-season and is out for the entire 2012 season and volny is so far down the roster that he'll rarely get to touch the ball. so, yeah, i'm in a solid last place.

{164} autograph

it's game day! so, that means today's name must be related to the winnipeg blue bombers again! today, i'm choosing to highlight a pre-made name. several years ago, one of my ex-co-workers went to an event where troy westwood was and they asked him to autograph a football card for me! i can't believe the thoughtfulness (that same ex-co-worker also ended up getting pinball clemons' autograph for me too!).

{157} canad inns stadium

tonight the bombers play the alouettes in montreal. it's the second road game out of four to start the season. that's all because the new stadium was supposed to be ready for the july 26 home opener but it won't be ready until NEXT july. oh, well. i'm over it. it was a good decision to not try and get it half-assed done for the fall. i want a real fan experience where i get a private tour as a season-ticket holder and get to check out my seats before the first game of the season. for now, however, we shall remain at the canad inns stadium.

this is the only stadium that i have ever known. my dad remembers osborne stadium that is where great west life is located but i only have attended games here. it's quite exciting to think that i get to experience a brand new stadium. what's also totally weird is that i'll be going to the brand new stadium but i'm also young enough that i will likely see it torn down and a new one built within my lifetime. maybe i won't tell the builders that because that could be totally depressing.

i have just GOBS of memories from this place. enough to write a book about them. like my season working for the bombers in 2006. or being the PR assistant to the CFL during the grey cup festival in 2006. hangin' out with all the great players (Milt Stegall, Khari Jones, Whit Tucker, Darren Flutie, Danny McManus). spending a fair amount of time in the locker room! all the time tom canada and i spent talking and walking around the stadium (and when tom canada called me for the first time, we were going to meet at the stadium and i drove 100 km/h down portage avenue to get there within 5 minutes--what would've normally been a 10 minute drive).

so many memories! i'm going to miss it! at least we have another whole season to bid farewell again. :)

{150} jersey

one-hundred and fifty names complete! woohoo! what an accomplishment!

today is also the first blue bombers game of the regular season (in BC at 9pm on TSN in case anyone was wondering). so, of course my name shall honour the team again today.

i decided to put on my bob cameron jersey (humungously major crush on him all throughout his playing career!*wink). then i used my handy self-timer and took a picture of the back of the jersey. then i photoshopped the back to say "lauren" instead of "cameron". i think it turned out pretty well, yes?

{141} license plate

i'm beginning to sense that on every day that there is a blue bomber game, my name will have something to do with the team. that sounds like a great idea, in fact. i shall try it out. i already have two ideas for another two blue bomber-themed names!

i was one of the originals when it comes to blue bomber license plates. in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if i was the first person in manitoba to pick up their new license plates in june 2011! i have the original blue ones  not these new fandangled gold ones. even though i like the gold plates better, i like that it shows i'm not a bandwagon jumper and i was an original trendsetter. :)

sadly, i will not be at the pre-season game tonight. i gave up my seat to my mother--even though it is supposed to rain tonight! i hope she'll be okay. i haven't missed a pre-season game in 10 years. i always go because we always get buddy seats so i take someone with me. last year, i took brant and sean with me to be seat buddies! we were going to make it an annual tradition but because our season tickets arrived so late, we never got the chance to exchange the buddy passes for tickets. oh, well. maybe we can go to a game later this season (or next year in the new stadium--fingers crossed).

{135} key chain

today was the bombers' first pre-season game and...they won! they beat montreal 22-10. yippee! i know that pre-season games don't mean squat but i'm still totally stoked to see them start off the season like this.

last year, i bought this key chain at the bomber store. in fact, all my key chains are blue bomber related! lol

(super busy life right now...am forced to rely on items with my name on them instead of creating new ones!)