One family's Rider pride

It was in 1937 that Chris Hungle performed a small act of faith that would affect not only his own life but that of future generations of Hungles.

He was just 18 and the Great Depression that had wreaked havoc on the Prairies was two years from ending.

Horses could still be seen pulling engine-less cars (known as Anderson carts locally, or Bennett buggies elsewhere in Canada), and many men remained desperate for work.

None of that stopped Hungle from putting down scarce money to purchase a pair of season tickets for the Regina Roughriders of the Western Interprovincial Rugby Union.

Through the next 65 years, he would live through the ups and downs of life as a Roughriders fan.

That included a name change that dropped Regina for a provincial designation, eight Grey Cup appearances (two wins), the most dreadful weather, consecutive 14-loss seasons, 11 years without a sniff at the playoffs, plus the greatness of George Reed and Ron Lancaster and a host of other players.

And he would pass that love on to the family, one that has now held season seats for the Green and White (formerly the Burgundy and Black) longer than anyone else.

"My father worked as an appliance salesman and a manager for Simpsons [department store at 11th Avenue, corner of Hamilton Street] here in Regina for 33 or 34 years and sold many people in town fridges and stoves and freezers and all those other things," says his eldest daughter, Laurie Beaurivage.

"We were a football family," she says. "You talk of families where hockey is more prominent, or baseball, but in our family it was football."

Dad's bride Audrey was first up for the use of the tickets, but with four children, Mom had to stay home with the youngsters eventually, so Laurie earned her chance to go to Taylor Field before the age of 10, around 1970.

"I took in all the sideline activities," Laurie says. "My father was very patient about explaining, or trying to explain, some of the rules and the strategies of the game, so that I would have some understanding.

"Today I can thank him for the amount of my knowledge."

When the ticket next to Dad wasn't available, Laurie and her friends would buy them in the Rider Rookie section — the end zone. "It cost peanuts," she recalls.

"I remember kids all lined up when they would do a field goal, and the ball would come through the uprights and poof, [one day] we got the ball. We had to give it back, but we did have our hands on the game ball for just a few moments."

That caused a lot of jealousy among the other Rider Rookies.

The greenest of fields

Younger brother Mike Hungle's memories are just as intense. 

"I remember being four or five years old, actually physically going to my first game at Taylor Field," he says. "In those days the grass was [real] and it was a night game.

"I remember coming up the tunnel and then looking down on the stadium. Just the brightness of the field, and the colour of the grass. It was just kind of inspiring to see that as a young kid."

Football ran deep in the Hungle family, though Chris himself was not a ball player. Cousin Joe Hungle played for the Riders in 1946, and Tony Hungle was with the club from 1947 to 1954.

In recent years, after Chris Hungle passed away in 2002, Laurie was looking through closets and drawers, sorting old clothes, when she came across a ticket her father had used on the Grey Cup train that used to run across the country into Toronto for the big game.

That was before the championship final began moving around to different cities.

"He and his cousin jumped on it in Regina and they ended up in Toronto," said Laurie's husband, Keith, who wasn't sure of the years this was done. "He used to talk quite a bit about that trip and how every whistle stop there was fans jumping on, and it was basically a party all the way.

"The Westerners sort of over ran the town, showed the Easterners how to have a good time.

"There was a fellow there who had an accordion and played polka music and they danced and so on and so forth. It sounded like it made quite an impression on him."

The Beaurivage family has a ticket from one trip Chris took to Toronto in 1959 for the Nov. 28 Grey Cup game between Winnipeg and Hamilton — $10, including tax.

Worth the struggle

Chris Hungle's love of the Riders kept him going to the games late in life, despite physical troubles that prompted the team to make allowances.

'He would listen right from the pre-game right through to the after game and he would follow play by play and he would know his players inside and out.' — Laurie Beaurivage on her late father, Chris Hungle

"He was very proud of being that Rider fan," his daughter says. "He went until he was probably in his late 70s and, due to Parkinson's, and to other physical reasons [arthritis] he could no longer climb the stairs, and they would allow him to come through the tunnel that the away team used.

"He went until his legs could no longer carry him up those 10 rows [to the seats] and he realized he couldn't do it anymore."

So it was off to the TV (if there wasn't a local blackout of the coverage) or the radio.

"He would listen right from the pre-game right through to the after game and he would follow play by play and he would know his players inside and out," Laurie says. "After, we would be at the game and we would rehash it with him and he would like that."

What their father's gift has mostly given Laurie and Mike and the other children and now grandchildren, is an understanding of what Rider pride means — dedication.

"Through thick and thin," Laurie says. "We had that 11-year drought [late '70s through most of the '80s] with no playoffs, two seasons with 14 losses. Were we disgruntled sometimes as fans at the end of games? We wouldn't be human if we weren’t a little disgruntled.

"But it's the light at the end of the tunnel that somehow seems to shine here on the Prairies. Maybe it's because we're nice and flat … and we can always see the end of the tunnel and we know at the end of it there is some great football, some great thing always to come, and entertainment."

There are five tickets now in a bunch — two with Laurie’s family and three with Mike's [and if anyone has four in row they want to give up — fat chance — he'd like to know about it]. And middle sister Dana's daughter, Jordan, has a pair of seats on the other side of the field.

They all cherish what being in a season section means.

"My dad was a real people man," Laurie says. "So football was another perfect outlet for him, because when you sit in a section … you make your own little family and you come back the next year … and it’s the same people and you exchange stories."

And you cheer. And you believe. And you sing On Roughriders with everyone. And you all despise the Edmonton Eskimos and love it when you beat the Green and Gold, no matter what else is happening.

It's been 73 years since Chris Hungle put a big part of his faith in the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

And now, as the club celebrates its centenary, it's not hard to project forward another 27 when the Hungles will put on the green and white and trudge out for their 100th season-ticket year.

By then, it could be under a dome stadium. No hail.