Perry Lefko

Perry Lefko keeps you connected to all the news in the CFL on Sportsnet.ca.

Fans show their true colours during the Grey Cup parade in Calgary.

CALGARY -- Maybe it's because I'm jaded.

Or because I'm a member of the media.

Or because I'm from Toronto and am naturally indifferent.

Or because I've been to enough Grey Cups to not really care.

Whatever it is, something compelled me to want to understand this Rider Pride thing.

What compels some people to dress up in football jerseys, wrap themselves in a flag, paint their faces and, in some examples, wear a watermelon on their head all because they love the Saskatchewan Roughriders?

In search of the answer, I ventured through Calgary on Saturday morning to follow the Grey Cup parade.

Make that the Saskatchewan Roughriders parade that included the Cup and some other references to the Canadian Football League because, in summation, it really became a green and white jamboree.

Of the many parade participants -- young and old, men and women -- and in one case a dog dressed in a Rider sweater, it became a salute to the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

For the many people who lined the streets singing Rider songs, waving flags and looking as though they belonged in a football version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, this is it. This is Rider Pride.

This is what the Roughriders mean to the Canadian Football League.

If you could bottle up this enthusiasm and take it into every city in the CFL, there would never be any worries about stability. Every team would be healthy and strong -- including the Argos.

I met an individual named Mark Muench, who wore a cardboard hat shaped like a football helmet and with the Rider colours.

"I've been a Rider fan probably before I was born and I'll be Rider fan until I die," he said. "I live in Calgary now, but no matter what happens, you'll always be a Rider fan. I own seven jerseys. I have one hat we made last year with a flasher and big horns and they took it away at halftime during the last game because they thought it might be a weapon. I said, 'I'm 45 years old, do I look like I'm going to get into a fight?' he said, 'You're wearing a deer hat and carrying a pilsner, yeah, I'm taking the hat.'"

Riders fan Mark Muench.

He admitted to wearing the shell of a watermelon on his head, as is the custom for Rider fans. It's such a popular part of Rider paraphernalia, that one food market put in a rush order of some 10,000 watermelons. And there's talk they sold out of them. If you're not inclined to wear the actual watermelon, you can buy a plastic one that includes the CFL logo. Imagine that, a licensed CFL product shaped like a watermelon.

Only in the CFL.

Sadly, of all the Rider fans I saw watching the parade, none had on a real watermelon. Some had the ersatz variety.

Muench said there is a certain skill and art to gutting the watermelon and letting it dry for two or three days so that it doesn't leave the wearer with a sticky head.

"The first time we wore it we didn't leave it dry and you pretty much have watermelon running down your face for the entire game, then we realized maybe we should let them dry," he said.

He scoffed off the suggestion that it's a weird feeling wearing a watermelon, indicating that after a couple of beers it really doesn't matter.

And then he talked of the artistry.

"It's more in how you cut the watermelon, you've got to come up with something unique," he insisted. "You can try and cut it like a helmet, you can try and cut it regular. As you grow in the watermelon age, you actually have the ability to make it into something really unique for style, design, whether you put the helmet ears on or you drop it back into a mullet."

I later ran into Austin Rieger, a 21-year-old from "small-town Alberta" but a "Riders fan against all my family's wishes."

Rieger had his face painted in green and white and had a green shirt with the words ‘Rider Pride.’

"It's the Rider Pride. You've got to come out and you've got to support the team and you've got to cheer," he said. "There's no reasonable explanation. It just drives you. It's the Rider Pride that drives you, that's all it is."

The Roughriders play the Montreal Alouettes at McMahon Stadium, and the likelihood is thousands of Rider Prides will be dressed in various green and white merchandise, some of it a natural product of the earth, in other cases manufactured by man. Anything goes. To borrow a line from a song: "It doesn't matter what you wear just as long as you are there."