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Perhaps we should have seen something like this coming when Oakland Raiders punter A.J. Cole III landed at the airport wearing a T-shirt promoting “Winnipeg, Alberta.”

This was going to be a parody, not a serious NFL pre-season game.

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Like most gong shows, we’ll probably look back at it and laugh some day.

Heck, I even shared a chuckle with former Blue Bombers coach Mike Kelly not so long ago. Time gives us a different perspective, after all.

So while the wounds are still fresh for those who shelled out big bucks for Thursday’s Four-Down Folly, the embarrassment still raw for how it made this town look bad on national television and south of the border, this, too, shall pass.

The one image I can’t get out of my mind already brings a smile to my face: the image of NFL stuffed shirts gathered around a spot of turf in the end zone, staring at it as if something was about to pop its head out.

It reminded me of pouring pails of water down a gopher hole when I was a kid, then standing back and waiting for the thing to scramble out – when we’d club it to death with hockey sticks. Hey, the tail fetched 10 cents back then.