Foreword: Both my man and I love the game, have loved it forever and always will. I remember sitting at McMahon Stadium after the Stamps won the ’71 Grey Cup. And they gave us all these cardboard megaphones for the pep rally. I waited around after and got mine signed by dozens of players. Do you know how much I wish I still had that megaphone? Don’t know what ever happened to it. My Gawd, what a keepsake that would be!

So you see, the love goes back many, many years. Back to some time in the ’60s when my brother started playing football and I thought it was really cool watching a bunch of guys pummel each other.

So below is what we came up with:

By Cindy Karpiak

I was asked “What drives a fan to make those long trips to support their team?”

 I will say my Mazda drives me, sometimes it’s the Altima, and often it’s a rental car. But the main thing, no matter which vehicle, it’s that we get there because we love the game and our Stampeders!

Living in Kamloops B.C., we went many years here just making the journey home usually once a year for the Labour Day Classic but finally decided that we needed to be there more often. So a few years back, we decided to re-enlist as season ticket holders.

There’s nothing like the special feeling of sitting in the crowd, yelling and cheering on your team. We were there to cheer on the touchdown rabbit. We were there for the celebration of life for Normie Kwong. We helped honour Jon Cornish for his illustrious career and we cried with the team and all the fans with breaking hearts for Mylan Hicks.

From the tailgates to the fastest cow, that atmosphere can’t be reproduced in front of your TV. Fifteen years ago, when we left Calgary because of a forced transfer, I cried my heart out having to leave the city and team I love.

The Stampeders have been such a huge part of my life from way back. The greats with names like Liske, Burden and Helton. To Garcia, Pitts and now Bo Levi, Hughes and McDaniel. Think back to the Larry Robinson field goal in minus 35-degrees that sent us to the Grey Cup in 1970, Mark McLouglin did the same to win the Grey Cup in Winnipeg and how do you ever forget Rocco Romano grinning ear to ear sitting on Quick Six’s back in ’98?

So why do I travel over 1300 kilometers for each game? For the love of it. And to be there . . . always. Because the Calgary Stampeders are my team, and I will bleed red and white until the very end!