It's safer inside the bullpen

Last night, four contestants for 100.3 The Bear's "Really Tough Contest" played in an event called "Cowboy Poker":

Normally when you think of poker the only thing you consider losing is your money! Cowboy poker requires a lot more than skill and money… it requires courage and NO fear!! Cowboy poker is a rodeo event played with four contestants, four chairs, a card table and a bull. The table and four chairs are set up in the middle of the rodeo arena. At the start of the game the announcer will outline the rules and then the contestants walk out to the table and sit in one of the four chairs. A bull is then released in to the ring to measure the courage of each cowboy. The rules are: the last cowboy sitting on his chair wins the poker hand. Some contests require skill; others require cajones. Cowboy Poker is one of the latter. In this high stake game the wild card really is wild!!

From all indications, things really weren't too hairy: I almost signed up for the event. I've been in a small pen with multiple bulls before, and they don't particularly frighten me. I've had to dodge them before, I can do it again.

What is ironic was that the "Cowboy Poker" event was one of the safer things you could do at the CFR last night...

EDMONTON — A woman was injured at the Canadian Finals Rodeo when a bull jumped over the railing and into the crowd on Friday at Rexall Place.

The woman was conscious but suffering from back pain and numbness in her legs as she was taken by stretcher into an awaiting ambulance.

Three other people were treated on site and released.

If it wasn’t for the actions of pick-up man Gary Rempel, rodeo officials said it could have been a lot worse.

“He’s a hero,” Krista Burton of the Canadian Pro Rodeo Sports Medicine said of Rempel, who lassoed the bull by one horn as it was in full flight leaping into the crowd.

“If he hadn’t roped the bull, that bull could have stampeded into who knows how many people,” said Dave Shields Sr., the CFR’s assistant chute boss.

Interesting as coincidences go, exactly four people were injured (one severely). Four men willingly got into a pen with a bull and were mostly fine. Four people got primo seats at the CFR, and could have been killed.