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Grey Cup MVP Kory Sheets gets a Saskatoon-Regina ride from a student thanks to Twitter

Andrew Bucholtz

Roughriders' running back Kory Sheets said before his Grey Cup-record rushing performance that he loved Saskatchewan and was "thinking about being here for a very long time," and he may have received some extra incentive on that front Monday. Sheets flew south to Connecticut for American Thanksgiving, then returned to Saskatoon, but realized he hadn't lined up a ride to Regina (a two-and-a-half hour trip, according to Yahoo! Maps), so he sent out a request for help on Twitter. One of Sheets' 17,908 followers, Maclean Nelson, was headed from Saskatoon to Moose Jaw (45 minutes west of Regina) that night and offered to give Sheets a ride to Regina. Sheets took him up on that, and it made for a great story. Here's a Yahoo! video with comments from Nelson:

And here's part of what Nelson told The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix's Arielle Zerr:

Q: You had him in your car for two and half hours. Was it awkward at all? Was there a moment where it was like, "Oh, this is really strange?"

A: No. You know, I didn't really feel that at all. I mean, there were lulls in conversation, but those were the times we just turned up the music and road tripped for a bit. He was very personable and very easy to talk to.

Q: What do you think it says about Rider fans and the relationship with the players that a player will just go on Twitter and ask someone for a ride?

A: I think it just reinforces the fact that we're the best fans in all the CFL. The fact that we're willing to go out of our way to pick up one of our players and drive him two and a half hours through somewhat poor road conditions, just wanting to make sure he gets home safe. I had lots of people tweeting me: "Thank you so much for making sure he got there safely," and "Please take care of our No. 1 RB."

Q: Did it seem surreal at times?

A: It did. I tried to stay as cool as possible, but there were times I thought in my head, "This is Kory Sheets, the best running back in the Canadian Football League, the 101st Grey Cup MVP," and he was sitting right beside me.

Yeah, that's pretty remarkable, and definitely an only-in-the-CFL moment. It says something cool about Twitter, too; while some fans use it to pick fights with athletes (including Rider QB Darian Durant), others use it to actually engage with them. It somewhat speaks to part of what Roughriders' head coach Corey Chamblin said during Grey Cup week as well; while playing in Saskatchewan may be a bit of a fishbowl experience thanks to all the focus from the legendarily-passionate fans, that's not always a bad thing:

"They're great fans. That's the thing; people hear that you live in a fishbowl, but I actually enjoy it. There's a lot of love here. ... You know that everything you do is going to be under a microscope, but not in a bad way."

There definitely was a lot of support for Sheets on Monday, and that's probably a good thing. After all, he is a pending free agent. Decisions on where to play aren't made solely off of something like this, of course, but the support Sheets got here certainly doesn't seem likely to hurt his chances of staying in Regina. Nelson did well out of it, too; he got to hang out with a Grey Cup MVP for a couple of hours, he got a jersey from Sheets, and he got a pretty memorable story.