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brawl of wild: is it Griz/cat or cat/Griz?!?!?!?

This is one of those "issues" that I didn't really know was an issue until internet message boards were invented.

I grew up in Butte, and to be honest, I don't even remember what we called the game. Probably Cat/Griz, but I never really thought much of it. When I was in Missoula, some people called it Griz/Cat, and I still didn't think much of it.

And then...about twelve years ago, I discovered internet message boards, and holy sh!t...I've probably read a total of about 187 pages worth of threads debating the point since then. As a practical matter, I usually call it the "Montana-Montana State" game these days, just because no one here would know what I was talking about if I called it anything else. When I'm in Montana, I probably usually call it Cat/Griz...unless I happen to be hanging out my Cat fan friends, and I want to get under their skin. (And to answer LTCF's question in advance...yes, maybe I am 12, although considering we're all arguing about college football on the internet, I'm not sure anyone here really has much room to talk about immaturity.)
 
:lame: :lame:

Who gives a sh!t. Does anyone really not know who's playing in the game. I like the brawl of the wild thing but naming it after the trophy would have been better: "The great divide" game sounds better and plays off where each is located plus the division it cause around the state.

:twocents:
 
In Billings, some of the news organizations are calling it "The Big Sky Classic". Until I read the article I thought it was a fundraiser for one of the hospitals.

I have no problem with cat/Griz because the cats are normally the first to run out the door.
 
Big sky classic is what I remember it being called in the 90's or so. I use cat/Griz and Griz/cat interchangeably.
 
It's Cat-Griz... It's always been Cat-Griz, and it will always be Cat-Griz. I would estimate that approximately 1% of the state's population calls it Griz-Cat... and that happens to represend about 90% of the Griz posters on this site... the ones that get their panties in a bunch over whose name comes first! :lol:
 
I've been gathering Griz football news since about 1994 and e-mailing it to a growing list of friends and their friends (and eventually posting the links in the eGriz News section). I attribute newspapers as the source of Cat-Griz. They do it alphabetically, whether it is Bobcat-Grizzly or Cat-Griz. So, cat fans get it drilled into their heads that they have a special right to have their mascot mentioned first. Same with Army-Navy: unbiased alphabetical. As is Abbott and Costello. Hatfields and McCoys. Man vs. Nature. Ali vs. Frazier. Coyote vs. Roadrunner. However, when great minds understand what is happening, they tend to set things right, such as Good vs. Evil.

Since about 1997 or so, I have edited my Griz news notes, searching for all cat-griz, cat/griz, bobcat-grizzly, and bobcat/grizzly and replacing them with Griz-Cat. I strongly favor the hyphenated version because I wish a pox on the virgule. And AZGrizFan, if you say Griz-Cat properly, you don't even need the "s."

Montra for today: Griz-Cat, Griz-Cat, Griz-Cat, Griz-Cat, Griz-Cat, Griz-Cat, . . .
 
Back in 1992, while trying to please a couple of customers, Torrey Pines Pub was asked to show a Montana Grizzly football game. No one knew what had just begun. That simple request occurred just as the Grizzlies were beginning a decade of dominance in Div. IAA, which included two national championship victories. A couple of customers grew to a dozen, then two dozen. Before long we hit and past the century mark at a Griz-Cat game.

Then the Cat team improved bringing more Cat fans at the next Griz-Cat game, bringing the crowd to an SRO level! Torrey Pines Pub then started emulating the excitement at Washington Grizzly Stadium by playing music heard at the stadium. Favorites such as The Cotton Eyed Joe, Ironman, and of course the Griz Fight Song helped the atmosphere.

Then, during a game, someone yelled out Montana! and the crowd answered Grizzlies! Then later over the microphone the proprietor, Bob Bonner, yelled First dowwwwnnnn and the crowd replied Montana! Followed by a group in the corner chanting "move them chains, move them chains".

The fun was only just beginning. During the off season, ex-coach Joe Glen and his wife visited Torrey Pines Pub to the thrill of almost 20 Griz fans. Then a visit by columnist Jon Kasper let to an article titled "Grizzlyville Meets Sin City" and the nickname stuck.

Grizzlyville is what Torrey Pines Pub becomes every Saturday during the football season. However not a week goes by throughout the year when Montanan's don't stop by and say hi!
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So just a quick check and I found that it was being called Griz Cat back in 1992. I know not that long ago. See what you can find.
 
:lol:

not sure if this is funny or embarrassing. do any of you REALLY give a rats ass? seriously, do you really care? or is this just another in the long list of petty crap cat fans and griz fans, (oops sorry.....griz fans and cat fans) insist on bitching about?

personally, i don't give a crap what anyone calls it. call it GRIZ-pussy if that's what makes you feel good. doesn't change a thing for me.

not sure what is lamer.....people calling it something retarded as a "slam" against the other team......or people whining about people calling it something retarded as a "slam" against the other team....

:cool:
 
MISSOULA - It's time for the annual Griz-Cat game - the name game, that is.

Time for the back-and-forth debate on blogs, in coffee shops, in offices and on campuses about which comes first, Griz or Cat, when referring to the annual college football rivalry.

The University of Montana's press releases about the 108th Montana and Montana State matchup refer to the "Griz-Cat" game. Montana State University calls it "Cat-Griz." Bottles of Jack Daniels sold at Grizzly Liquor in Missoula this week include a shiny gold medallion engraved "Griz/Cat." Those same gold medallions sell on bottles at Belgrade Liquor near Bozeman, but with "Cat" out front.

"It's amazing how this is a sticking point," said Bill Lamberty, MSU's sports information director. When he first moved to Bozeman from Wyoming in 1990, few people made the distinction. But anymore, even Lamberty has been corrected by a Griz fan for putting his Bobcats first.

"I've had people who said Griz-Cat in the next sentence just to get that out there," he said. "Griz fans like hearing their name first."

For some fans, it's a way to show team loyalty. Others fall back on alphabetical order. Others say whatever rolls off the tongue. Maybe it's an extension of the rivalry on the field. Or maybe some feel whatever school secures the most wins should get the honor of its team leading in the name of the game.

No matter why fans say what they do, is it possible for Montanans to agree on what to call the state's biggest sporting event?

Not before Saturday.

The issue may be unique to Montana. No one, for example, ever says the Navy-Army game.

"It doesn't sound right," said Scott Strasemeier, Navy sports information director.

The annual college football game between the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., is one of the nation's oldest, most intense rivalries. Yet it's always referred to as the Army-Navy game.

Strasemeier doesn't know why. Nothing is written down. Maybe it's alphabetical, he said.

One thing is for sure, though. No one has ever tried to put "Navy" first. Army-Navy is tradition, and no one messes with that.

"It's what it's called," Strasemeier said. "At this point, it just sounds right. As long as we win the game, you can call it anything you want."

So, what's the big deal in Montana?

It shows your allegiance, said UM sports information director Dave Guffey, who has worked 31 years at UM and called it the Griz-Cat game the entire time.

"I'm a Grizzly and the Grizzlies go first," he said. Calling it anything else "doesn't seem natural to me." Guffey assumes anyone who puts Griz at the tail end of the term is a Bobcat fan.

Not so, said 25-year-old Ryan Lucas, a UM student from Missoula.

"I never really thought about it," said Lucas, who grew up attending Griz games. He roots for the Grizzlies but has always referred to the matchup as the Cat-Griz game. "That's the more familiar term."

"Cat-Griz sounds better," Lamberty said. "People say it sounds better."

Warren Rogers worked as The Billings Gazette sports editor between 1972 and 2000. Until Tuesday, the veteran editor had never heard the term "Griz-Cat."

"It never dawned on me," said Rogers. Back then, "Cat" always went first. Maybe it's because the Gazette sold newspapers in Bozeman or maybe it was just alphabetical. Whatever the reason, when Rogers arrived in Montana in 1972, "that's what they called it. There was no explanation, really."

Roy Pace, retired sports editor of the Independent Record in Helena, used the phrase "Cat-Griz" nearly all the time, he said. Pace, who worked as sports editor at the newspaper between 1970 and 1996, said at that time, people in the Capital City were predominantly Bobcat fans, so no one ever complained. That's not true anymore, he said.

Joe Sanders, a 21-year-old UM student, waited five hours in line this week to nab a highly coveted ticket to the cross-state rivalry. Even though Sanders hails from Missoula, he said this is his first "Griz-Cat game." That's how he said it, and that's how he'll insist all others within earshot refer to the matchup.

"Because the Griz are better," he said. "It's not the soundest logic, but it should be the Griz-Cat game."

No matter the reason, when it comes to the Brawl of the Wild (a neutral term, one hopes), the competition begins long before the athletes ever take the field.

Now, let the game begin.
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Maybe the winner each year should have the right to have there name first.
 
ilovethecats said:
:lol:

not sure if this is funny or embarrassing. do any of you REALLY give a rats ass? seriously, do you really care? or is this just another in the long list of petty crap cat fans and griz fans, (oops sorry.....griz fans and cat fans) insist on bitching about?

personally, i don't give a crap what anyone calls it. call it GRIZ-pussy if that's what makes you feel good. doesn't change a thing for me.

not sure what is lamer.....people calling it something retarded as a "slam" against the other team......or people whining about people calling it something retarded as a "slam" against the other team....

:cool:
Click to expand...

That's ironic...that's what I say whenever I see someone decked out in griz gear walk by. "There goes another griz pussy." (or is it pussy griz??). :lol:
 
HiddenGriz said:
Maybe the winner each year should have the right to have there name first.
Click to expand...

good idea in theory. but keep in mind that we rarely even give the winning team credit for winning the game! no way in hell guys on either side would buy into this way of thinking.

you're giving us too much credit..... :D
 
ilovethecats said:
:lol:

not sure if this is funny or embarrassing. do any of you REALLY give a rats ass? seriously, do you really care? or is this just another in the long list of petty crap cat fans and griz fans, (oops sorry.....griz fans and cat fans) insist on bitching about?

personally, i don't give a crap what anyone calls it. call it GRIZ-pussy if that's what makes you feel good. doesn't change a thing for me.

not sure what is lamer.....people calling it something retarded as a "slam" against the other team......or people whining about people calling it something retarded as a "slam" against the other team....

:cool:
Click to expand...


+1. This debate pops every year. :roll:
 
When we win the trophy we can call it what ever we want.

Until then, it's Cat/Griz this year. :twocents:

PS FTC
 
griznation23 said:
so, it's brawl of wild pre-week and noticed a few "cat/Griz" statements or"Griz/cat" statements, which is it and or does it depend on where they play? is it brawl of wild not cat/Griz or Griz/cat... shot...
Click to expand...

Who cares?
 
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