The 13th man doc: The pain never ends

My thoughts on TSN's 13th Man documentary which aired last night: 

The good:

• Paul McCallum is a far classier guy than I’ve ever given him credit for. (And I honestly never saw an interview after the 2004 loss where he refused to face the rest of the team. Like wow.)
• Best comments from the hour: McCallum in his assessment of how it should feel like a hallow victory for Montreal – winning because of another team’s mistake instead of your own ability.
• The nuns were hilarious. Loved that part! God bless them!
• Best quote from a fan: No one died, but it felt like it. (Close second goes to the guy who said he stood still for five minutes until a fan behind him asked his wife if he was having a stroke.) 

The bad:

• I watched the game-winning field goal for the first time ever. I left a house full of people once I knew the penalty. Took my dog outside and cried by myself.
• No one outside of Ridernation will ever understand the pain of that day. They can make all the documentaries they want about it, they’ll never get it.
• Duval (Montreal kicker) is a jerk. Yes, thank you, for pointing out the final score on your Grey Cup ring, you twit!

The ugly:

• Watching Weston Dressler throw his helmet on the sidelines.
• Most haunting image – Paul LaPolice standing alone on the sidelines watching Montreal celebrate.
• Most disturbing image (not shown): Knowing Darian Durant and Andy Fantuz went to the training room to cry alone for 20 minutes. Got me choked up again just typing that.

I felt a little bit like the director didn’t get it. He thought it would be this great love story between fans and the team, but I wanted more positives out of it. Like how the team took turns in interviews leading up to the 2010 Grey Cup falsely confessing to being the 13th man. And I wish they had spent more time talking about the warm welcome the team got coming back after that devastating loss. And maybe more time talking about how the fans came to wear 13th man as a badge of honour again.

I will admit it is hard to assess how good the documentary was simply because the subject is so emotional for all of us. I thought they could have interviewed more Rider fans, maybe even different Rider fans, but I'm not sure I'm in a good head space to offer up critiques on this man's journalistic ability in creating a documentary on what has to be one sports most memorable and disgusting moments. A hundred Grey Cups could never erase that memory. Or the hurt that comes with it.

Bottom line: It was painful. It was still painful and I won’t watch it again.