PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Manitoba — We have departed my favorite-sounding Canadian province, but I want to take a quick look back at a story that CTV was covering like a blanket.

It involves beef producers and their, um, beef with A&W Burgers and a Canadian Football League team, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, based in Regina, the provincial capital of Saskatchewan.

A&W is a corporate sponsor for the ‘Riders. The chain also produces some sort of veggie burger. The Roughriders’ affiliation with A&W and the veggie burger seems to irk the beef producers in Saskatchewan, where ranchers grow a lot of cattle, which are processed into a lot of burgers and assorted cuts of beef.

The Saskatchewan Beef Growers is raising a bit of hell over the veggie burgers, contending that its complaint isn’t with “vegan” dietary lifestyle. The beef growers insist their complaint centers on whether the veggie burgers are made with locally grown vegetables.

To which I say … uh huh.

I think the Saskatchewan Beef Growers could be a bit more, um, candid in expressing its discontent with the Roughriders and with A&W. A part of me wants to believe the spokesfolks at the Saskatchewan Beef Growers. The rest of me thinks they’re really miffed at the football team and the burger chain because they aren’t peddling actual beef burgers.

But … that’s just me.