Stamps vs. Flames: A debate on which team represents the spirit of Calgary best

On Sunday night, the Calgary Stampeders face-off against the Ottawa Redblacks for Canadian football supremacy.

Meanwhile, the Calgary Flames are trying to string together some wins on the road.

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• No horsing around: Stamps, Redblacks won't have familiar mascots at Grey Cup

With both teams competing for our attention, we decided to tackle a heated sports question on this week's Unconventional Panel.

Below is an edited transcriptof a conversation between Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray and our panelists Balfour Der, Manjit Minhas and Andrew Phung.

Q: Which team better represents the spirit of Calgary the Flames or the Stamps?

Andrew: The Stamps. Literally anyone can try out for the Calgary Stampeders. They have open tryouts. There's no open tryouts for the Flames.

Balfour: The Flames. They're trying hard. They're not doing well, but they're trying very hard, which is so much like Calgary.

Andrew: The Calgary Flames Because They Tried. That should be their new slogan!

Balfour: I'm a fair weather fan so I don't like sitting in McMahon when it's -30 C in the wind, freezing to death watching the game. That ain't fun to me.

Manjit: To go to a football game in this country is truly Canadian because you sit out there in the summer and enjoy a cold beer [and] you freeze with them in the winter. You are experiencing Calgary at its worst and its best even with the weather.

Q: But Manjit, wasn't ice hockey a Canadian invention?

Manjit:I believe hockey was our game, but it's been stolen.

Andrew: Hockey is our game, but the Stampeders represent our city.

Manjit: Why is hockey our game though? We haven't won, or we don't even look like we're winning as a country, never mind as a city, in decades.

Q: So Manjit, what you're saying is we only back winners?

Manjit: Yeah!

Balfour: So now we're the City of Champions like Edmonton?

Q: The Flames face teams from New York, Chicago and L.A.all the time. What would happen if the Stamps went up against anNFL team?

Balfour: They'd be destroyed

Andrew: But it would be amazing to watch.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener