Clifford Pine on the Alouettes, CFL fandom and his upcoming CFLPA FANtasy camp experience

While the CFL free agency world continues to turn (or, more accurately given Wednesday's relative lack of notable developments, not turn), it's worth pointing out that there are other things going on in the league this week as well. One notable one is the CFLPA's FANtasy camp, which recently announced its contest winners: a fan from each team, chosen from video submissions, will get to go hang out with CFL players in Barbados in May. It's a pretty cool initiative, and a neat way to connect fans with players. To get a idea on what it means and where some CFL fans are coming from these days, I spoke with one of the winning contestants, Montreal Alouettes' fan Clifford Pine (who you may know from his Twitter feed and his Dirty Bird Blog). Here's the video he came up with for the contest:

Pine chose quite a unique approach for his video entry, and said he was motivated by a favourite movie clip.

"If I was going to undertake a project like this in order to win such a great prize, I wasn't going to half-ass it," he said. "I didn't want some boring 2-minute video of me in front of a camera just talking about how much I love the team. I wanted to create something memorable and a tribute to one of my favourite scenes from The Shawshank Redemption seemed apropos. Not to mention it tied nicely with hope in your team; fans always want their team to win and despite us Alouettes fans being spoiled with 2 straight Grey Cup wins, we were brutally reminded this year how much losing sucks. But if a fan had gotten a letter from a player encouraging them never to lose faith in the team they live and die for.....well, to me that would be the ultimate fantasy come true."

Pine said his deep love for the CFL started relatively late in life, but it was inspired by the Alouettes' return in 1996.

"Believe it or not, I never grew up as a CFL fan," he said. :"I grew up in Montreal, my love for football came to being during the time period when the Alouettes had already folded and it was all NFL for me. I had no ties to any CFL team. But when the Baltimore Stallions relocated to Montreal, I jumped in with both feet."

He said a key part of his interest came from an early connection to the team, first as a journalist.

"What helped was the team's first training camp was at my alma mater, John Abbott College," he said. "Getting to see the team work out in person and meeting greats like Tracy Ham and Jock Climie only fueled the inferno of true fandom.
Using my college newspaper credentials, I was able to finagle a press pass from the Als and attend those dreadful games at the Big O. With my dreams of journalism dashed, I focused more on being a fan. And despite relocating to the Ottawa area, my passion for the team has never wavered."

In fact, Pine said he has no plans to switch allegiances after the CFL's planned Ottawa expansion.

"Just to be clear...while it'd be great for the CFL to have a team in Ottawa again, no, I will not switch allegieances when the Ottawa Whatevers start playing," he said. "I'm Alouette-born, Alouette-bred. And when I die, I'll be Alouette dead."

Pine said that sense of connection to his team is even more prevalent these days thanks to players and teams interacting with the fans on social media, and that's really helped boost the CFL's importance in his life.

"The advent of social media has allowed me numerous ways to increase the fan experience far beyond just going to the stadium or watching it on TV," he said. "I now feel even more connected to my team, its players and the league. And quite frankly, there's no going back."

While Pine enjoys interacting with various players, he said he's happy to root for whoever wears Montreal's colours.

"I often joke that at any time I have 46 favourite players; they all wear red, white, blue & silver!" he said. "If you play for the Alouettes, you're gonna have to give me a very good reason to not like you. And with it being a small league, the guy who burned your team last year could be at your team's training camp next year."

Pine said contests like this camp help to show off the uniqueness of the CFL, and the ability to interact with players in a way that would be tough to imagine in many other sports.

"I think the league as a whole is tremendously unique," he said. Its nuances are just different enough that it doesn't feel like an NFL-lite and there's no need to make it that way. ... There's been some forgettable periods and questionable decisions made over the years, but overall I feel the league is steadily climbing & evolving. And it's designed with the fans' interests in mind. You as a fan speaks, the CFL listens."

He said he's quite impressed with the direction the CFL's been headed in.

"I think the way things are going league-wide are positive, just maintain the ideal of it being a truly Canadian league," he said. "Let the personalities shine and don't be afraid to get behind fan ideas."

Producing that video took substantial effort in itself, but now Pine gets to reap the rewards. He said he can't wait.

"I've never left North America, so that in and of itself will be a treat," Pine said. "I'm also looking forward to seeing how the players will be in a non-football element. Not to mention this trip is a month before training camp opens, so it will be good to find out just how prepared the players are going to be for the upcoming season."

Pine said these kinds of endeavours really allow fans to get a sense of who the CFL's players are, and come to appreciate them even more.

"I think it's efforts like this that further strengthen the bond between the players and fans," he said. "The term "ordinary superstar" can apply to the CFL's players, and it's by no means an insult. These are great guys to know and they seem to love the game just as much as the fans. Now I get to spend a few days in paradise with some other fans that hopefully feel like I do? We should all be so lucky!"