TORONTO – Let’s begin with a confession/admission as we put a bow on the 2016 Canadian Football League season:
Yours truly truly loves this league, warts and all. Always have, always will, and that bias will reveal itself fully in the paragraphs that follow.
Heading over to BMO Field in a bit to cover my 24th Grey Cup. Warts and all, love this league pic.twitter.com/inEb4HEtyz
— Ed Tait (@EdTaitWFC) November 27, 2016
I said as much in a tweet Sunday afternoon when venturing over to BMO Field to watch the Ottawa REDBLACKS capture their first Grey Cup in the new franchise’s history – and the first in the capital since 1976 – in an overtime dandy that will be forever framed as one of the greatest upsets in the championship’s history.
Now, this was a day when Henry Burris surely found the validation he had been seeking after one of the most dominant performances in the 104 years of the Grey Cup against a Calgary Stampeders side that had dominated all season long, except when it mattered.
And thumbs up to former Winnipeg Blue Bombers players and staffers like Rick Campbell, Mark Nelson, Bob Dyce, Ike Charlton, Miles Gorrell. Kudos, as well, to Winnipeg product Kienan Lafrance, who played such a critical role in the REDBLACKS push to the title.
All that said, the last few days have been tough for the Canadian Football League in its biggest market. The Toronto Argonauts, one of the oldest franchises in North America, took another pounding all week with the local newspapers/media penning obituaries about the team and hammering away at its relevance in a market it once ruled with the Maple Leafs, but has now fallen behind the Leafs, Blue Jays, Raptors and Toronto FC.
They’ve found the right venue in BMO Field, but will still be fighting to find 25,000 fans in a metropolitan area with more than six million people. That goes ditto for the CFL itself in this market for, outside of a downtown area that featured an outdoor festival area and the hotels and bars that hosted the team parties like Touchdown Manitoba and Spirit of Edmonton, hardly embraced Grey Cup week.
Initial ticket prices were exorbitant, especially given all the sporting entertainment options in this town, and the subsequent price slashing just angered the diehards to had ponied up to pay top dollar. Hammering home this further: the tickets weren’t available to the public until July, while Ottawa started selling ducats to the 2017 game this past week.
Still, if we’ve learned anything about this grand ol’ league over the years, it’s that it can certainly take a punch. And invariably, when the game is propped up on a national stage, it punches back by giving us a compelling finish as the REDBLACKS and Stamps did Sunday night.
That’s how it often works with this league and especially when the Grey Cups are on display in southern Ontario. And it’s what left many recalling the 1996 Grey Cup in Hamilton – which saw Toronto edge 43-37 win over Edmonton on a snowy track at Ivor Wynne Stadium – as a reference point for the game, the league, and its place in the Golden Horseshoe.
The league was in a vastly different place 20 years ago. Coming out of the failed U.S. expansion and with franchises bleeding dollars, the days leading up to the ’96 title game were as bleak as many could remember, with a common narrative suggesting the league might be hosting its last Grey Cup.
And then Doug Flutie and Danny McManus served up a fantastic QB duel in the show, Eddie Brown made his incredible shoe-top catch and the Grey Cup helped make many believers in the three-down game again.
That’s what this league does to its diehards: it can frustrate and it can infuriate. But when it’s good, it is compelling theatre.
More on the 104th Grey Cup with our final post-game collection of notes, quotes and anecdotes we call ‘Upon Further Review’:
ICYMI… the Burris story from Sunday has more than a few layers to it. The veteran pivot is not only the oldest QB to lead his team to a Grey Cup title – he’s a couple months older than Damon Allen was in 2004 when he led the Argos to a championship – he did it after his knee locked up in the warm-up and his status became all the buzz before kickoff.
Burris had the Ottawa medical staff examine the knee in the dressing room and adjust his knee brace so that he couldn’t quite fully extend the joint – that full extension was causing the issue – while, as he put it, he swallowed some ‘happy pills’ to dull the pain.
Afterward, he made reference to his ‘Willis Reed’ moment. Even for huge hoops fans going back to the 1970 NBA championship, this is an analogy that might have gone over a lot of heads. Here’s a quick explanation.
A COOL FACT… tossed out by Brent Bellamy, a Winnipeg architect, during Sunday’s game: The CFL has the 12th-highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world with the NFL first:
Fun #GreyCup fact: CFL has the 12th highest average game attendance of any professional sports league in the world. pic.twitter.com/OMP1riOD9I
— Brent Bellamy (@brent_bellamy) November 28, 2016
COOL FACT II… As good as Burris’ numbers were Sunday, this nugget was part of the post-game record stats package forwarded by the CFL: his passer efficiency rating of 119.9 was the second-highest in Grey Cup history.
And No. 1?
Tom Burgess, who finished at 121.2 after leading the Bombers to the 1990 title.
YOU HAD TO BE THERE… Sunday morning at the annual Football Reporters of Canada breakfast when the late, great Don Chevrier – the voice of the CFL for years – was added to the media wing of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
It was a touching moment to see three generations of his family there to celebrate it and how much the honour means to them, even if it comes years after his passing in 2007.
THE OFFSEASON ISN’T GOING TO BE EASY… in Calgary, where the Stamps 15-2-1 regular season will be lost after falling to the REDBLACKS.
It’s also going to be tough on those who were trying to finish in a tribute to Mylan Hicks, who was killed outside a Calgary nightclub in September. It’s a powerful story and a tip of the hat to TSN, who provided this wonderful story in their pre-game.
MOST WHO FOLLOW THIS GAME… religiously reference the old mantra about how teams need solid quarterbacking and a good Canadians. Just for the sake of discussion, let’s examine that further when looking at the lineups the REDBLACKS and Stampeders started in comparison to the Bombers.
Ottawa:
QBs: Henry Burris, Trevor Harris, Danny O’Brien
Starting Canadians: slotback Brad Sinopoli (named the top Canadian in the game), left guard J’Michael Deane, centre Jon Gott, right guard Nolan MacMillan and right tackle Jason Lauzon-Seguin, running back Kienan Lafrance, safety Antoine Pruneau, defensive tackle Zack Evans and defensive end Arnaud Gascon-Nadon.
Calgary:
QBs: Bo Levi Mitchell, Drew Tate, Andrew Buckley
Starting Canadians: RB Jerome Messam, WR Anthony Parker, left guard Shane Bergman, centre Spencer Wilson, right tackle Dan Federkeil, defensive tackle Junior Turner and linebacker Alex Singleton.
Winnipeg (from West Semi-Final)
QBs: Matt Nichols, Kevin Glenn, Dominique Davis
Starting Canadians: Running back Andrew Harris, centre Matthias Goossen, right guard Sukh Chungh, wide receiver Julian Feoli-Gudino, defensive end Jamaal Westerman, defensive tackle Keith Shologan and safety Taylor Loffler.
AND, FINALLY… Thanks to all those Bombers fans who visited bluebombers.com this past season to gobble up what we produced daily. Just FYI: what we do certainly doesn’t end now that the CFL campaign is over. In fact, we’re working on plans to make sure we keep the content fresh throughout the offseason, so please keep us on your favourites bar.
