WINNIPEG — When fans of the Blue Bombers move away from Winnipeg, it doesn’t mean they stop supporting their team.
680 CJOB’s Bob Irving has been calling play-by-play for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for more than 40 years and every once in awhile he’ll ask fans to email him with where they’re listening from. It turns out the Bomber fan base reaches well beyond the borders of Manitoba and even Canada.
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“I pick one game sort of at random and I typically get between 40 and 60 emails,” Irving said. “Switzerland, Norway, even had a family listening in on vacation from Barcelona, Spain.”
Dedicated Bomber fans have been listening in from England, Israel, Ireland, Germany, Ukraine, Spain, Argentina and a number of other locations all around the globe since Irving first asked seven or eight years ago.
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“It’s a reinforcement of the power of Blue Bomber football. Where if you’re a fan it doesn’t matter where you move in the world or country, you remain a fan and you remain committed to following the Bombers,” Irving said.
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After saying a quick on-air hello to a family vacationing in Barcelona during the Sept. 17 game against the Toronto Argonauts, Irving was sent a number of unsolicited emails from other fans all around the world listening in. During the Oct. 8 game against the B.C. Lions Irving directly asked for fans to email in their location. Below is a map highlighting their locations all around the world, even someone riding a bus between San Juan and Mendoza, Argentina.
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