Like it or not, there are many instances in an athlete’s career where he would just love to lash out towards his coach.
Unfortunately for the stressed athlete, he must contain his anger and respect his coach at all times.
Now, the Concordia Stingers’ football team has an online outlet in which they can relieve their pent-up anger towards Head Coach Gerry McGrath.
Oddly enough, this game, which can be found at http://gerry_mcgrath.tripod.com/jeux.html, comes from the Laval Rouge et Or’s fans and supporters!
That isn’t surprising, considering the slight love-hate relationship between the Stingers’ coach and the U of Laval supporters, which goes back to the Labour Day game that was played in Quebec City.
During that game, the music played between plays went beyond the referees’ whistle, which cause McGrath to file a complaint with the CIS.
Due to that, the Rouge et Or fans tried to get under the Stingers’ skin at the QIFC semi-final on Nov. 2, bringing out posters that included, among other things, a headshot of McGrath on top of Buzz’s body. That new Concordia mascot spun off into the Gerry McGrath game.
The general idea of the game is to attempt to zap the flying McGrath cartoon characters as many times as possible while two McGrath bumblebees fly aimlessly about the computer screen.
McGrath sees the situation as humorous: “It’s even funnier because they had to move the site to a dot.com website,” McGrath exclaimed with a laugh. “Their original server wasn’t large enough for all the visitors.”
Although he sees some Rouge et Or fans as being malicious, McGrath believes that they are only a handful and does not see the website as being derogative in any way.
“During our game up there, about 30 or 40 guys had moved behind our bench during the second half, but there were 9,960 fans who were just enjoying the game,” he explained.
“If anything, this website is the kind of stuff that generates great interest in college football, it’s good and healthy for rivalry.”
