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With my ears still ringing from the on-campus Kim Mitchell concert the night before, my entire floor at Carleton University’s residence (2nd Renfrew) started to rise and shine early and loud on September 17th, 1989. It was Panda Day – whatever the heck that was – and the common area was busy with guys custom-painting old blue overalls. I have no idea where all those overalls came from, but someone handed me a pair and a paintbrush so I poured myself a CC & Coke and got down to work.
By mid-afternoon the quad was full of sloshy, drunky, painted frosh. Horns were sounded, plastic cups were handed out, and before you knew it several thousand of us took over Colonel By Drive as we paraded the kilometre or so along Ottawa’s picturesque canal from Carleton University to Lansdowne Park. It was one of those nationalistic school pride rallies that works wonders when held in large, drunken numbers.
By this time I had found out what Panda was: it was the annual football game between the Carleton team (the Ravens) and the Ottawa U. team up the street (the Gee-Gees). And tradition held that students from each school would get painted and loaded and pack one half of the large football stadium and spend the whole game yelling out chants and lobbing water balloons across the field at the drunken painted students on the other side of the stadium. One of the more popular chants on our side was “What the f***’s a Gee-Gee?!?” It would be years before it occurred to me that Gee-Gee must stand for Governor General, which is an admirable name for a football team. Well played, Ottawa U.
It was a pretty legendary, raucous event. A few years previous the Carleton side was so rowdy that a section of bleachers gave way, leading to several injuries and nation-wide news stories. From my perspective the day had nothing to do with football and everything to do with spectacle (and drinking). My favourite part was the water balloons.
One of the traditions that grew up around the Panda game was a battle between the engineering students from the opposing schools. The challenge was to develop projectile devices that were capable of launching a water balloon from one side of the stadium and have it reach the other side. The devices had to be collapsable and versatile enough to make it past security, and while I never actually saw one of the balloon bazookas up close, I – like the rest of the crowd – watched the fruits of their labours with glee all afternoon as one balloon after another took flight, some reaching their target but most raining down on the players and officials on the field between the two competing sides.
The other major highlight of the Panda game was when a senior guy from my floor went on a long, successful streak across the field chased by security and officials alike. The rest of our floor cheered him on like manic banshees as he deeked one man after another and ran around the field dangling proudly for good old 2nd Renfrew.
For anyone keeping track it is written in my ticket book that Ottawa University won the match by a score of 23-11, but I sure don’t remember walking out of the stadium feeling like a loser. Rather, I strutted out of there alongside fifty of my new best buddies (everyone from my floor), and we in turn were surrounded by the entire population of our new micro-city called ‘residence’, and we were all headed back to our new home for a massive collective nightcap or three. Not too shabby.
This university stuff was definitely going to be a lot of fun, that much was very clear.
Todd Man Out 