Some thoughts on Gainer the Gopher

The other weekend, I was on location at Capital Pontiac for the Kids Day they had and one of the highlights had to be watching Gainer the Gopher.

Gainer was there for a couple hours and I had a chance to watch the way kids responded to him. We've all seen him at Rider games and how he helps whip the crowd up, but it was something special to behold at Capital Pontiac.

I've seen lots of different mascots with kids and some of the kids are shy and stay away, some (especially the little ones) will even be scared and cry when the mascot comes close - come on a lot of these mascots are huge when looked through a 2 year old's eyes.

Not Gainer.

Every little kid that came up to Gainer loved the experience - many went right up and hugged him right away and Gainer was great - spending time with the little ones and he must have had at least 50 pictures taken with his fans. One little guy came up behind him and tugged on Gainer's tail, to which Gainer pretended to be upset, putting his hands on his hips, which the little guy who pulled his tail thought was hilarious. Gainer even followed it up with a soft little pretend kick-in-the butt. Gainer even engaged in a game of hide and seek right there in the showroom at Capital - running and hiding behind cars -Gainer has more energy than I do - that's for sure. When there was a break in the parade of children, if he wasn't teasing me or serving hotdogs, Gainer was in sales offices, shuffling papers and pretending to make car deals on the phone.

In short, there was no shortage of smiles when Gainer was there - the kids loved him, the parents thought he was great and I think he's one of the best ambassadors for the greatest team in the world - our Saskatchewan Roughriders.

Well done, Gainer.