Grey Cup weekend day 3: game day a.k.a. the inevitable anticlimax

I had a fun time at the 94th Grey Cup. Not sure if it was $279.35 worth of fun, but it was definitely fun, and no, my ass didn't freeze. Temperature was not bad—for Winnipeg—and it was my first non-exhibition pro football live experience, so that was thrilling in and of itself.

"The party was welcoming, raucous and fun. The game was utterly pedestrian." Yes, once again the Toronto Star's columnist Damien Cox (whom I spotted on our flight back to Toronto) has it nailed.

The whole day seemed a bit wrong-footed, starting with getting swindled by the Trailer Park Boys. We thought the "Trailer Park Breakfast" at the convention centre would be a fun little way to kick off Grey Cup Sunday... but our $20 admission ticket had a $5 Ticketmaster surcharge tacked on, and got us a (cold!) breakfast sandwich and some hash browns. Nothing else. They were charging extra for coffee and orange juice from pitchers! Oh, we also got 10 or 15 minutes of patter from "Mr. Lahey" and "Randy", followed by some really bad band from Winnipeg. I said to Dan, "let's consider ourselves ripped off and get out of here," and we did. Trailer Park Boys, you get the gasface! (Why does this seem like exactly the sort of situation that would make any of the characters on the show go ballistic?)

Later, "Bubbles" was sitting in our section in the stadium, but I couldn't be bothered to throw anything at him...


So, yeah, my Alouettes lost the Grey Cup, in mostly-uneventful fashion... although general manager-turned-coach Jim Popp seems to be getting a free pass in the English press for what seems like a rookie move—not challenging that supposed Robert Edwards fumble on the one-yard line. (What's the French-language press saying?)

But, as for my Grey Cup experience—no regrets!