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!

Grey Cup weekend day 2, chapter the second: in which we touch the Cup. and some cheerleaders.

Saturday night we decided to head on down to the Pyramid Cabaret to check out the Montreal Alouettes cheerleader extravaganza. We had no idea that the Grey Cup would be in the hizzouse, but there it was! A mob scene ensued, which you can't really tell from the isolated snap, above, but I feel this photo has the sort of dignified serenity befitting a nearly-century-old tradition. Or something.

You know, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats cheerleaders have, hands down, the hottest moves. One might legitimately wonder if anyone has thought to tell them that football is, you know, "family" entertainment. I think that particular finer point is lost on Dan, though.


Having charmed the Ti-Cat ladies, our own Haligonian Casanova moved on to the Alouettes, buying a copy of their pin-up calendar and proceeding to secure the autographs for several months, including, crucially, Miss November, who wished Dan a happy birthday and signed with an "XXX". It was right about then that I knew I was the evening's designated driver.

Grey Cup weekend day 2, chapter the first: in which we tour Winnipeg, and find it to be bisonesque, with undertones of A Space Odyssey.

Our whistlestop tour began with St. Boniface Cathedral, which includes the remains of a previous incarnation that burned in 1968. The Mint wasn't open, but we went to see the Manitoba provincial legislature, which was startlingly grand, and eerily empty.


Then we went and got some lunch on at The Forks before heading out to Fort Whyte to check out the bison.


"They're bison, all right."

We had a good hike around one of the trails, checked out a fearless deer and fawn at the bison viewing mound, and then my chimp friend discovered that "bison bone make good tool."


Cue Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Later that night we hit the revolving lounge atop Fort Garry Place and my cellphone captured this slightly impressionistic version of the Winnipeg skyline. We traced 360 degrees and consumed mediocre nachos. Magnetic-sole boots not required.

Grey Cup weekend day 1: Tom Wright, Brent Bambury, and more

Dan and I arrived in Winnipeg around 2pm on Friday... it turned out we were on the same flight with the Rev. Gary Thorne (best known in Halifax for his tenure at St. George's Round Church through the June 1994 fire and rebuilding). Couldn't help sneaking a peek—what does Gary Thorne read on the plane on his way to a meeting of the Primate’s Theological Commission (of the Anglican Church of Canada on the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions)? Not so shocking really — Richard Hooker.

I had tried and failed to get tickets to the Winnipeg taping of Brent Bambury's Go, but Dan and I random happened across the taping site while wandering around the Forks... so we craned our necks around a corner and caught him in front of the live audience interviewing Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

But the highlight of the night was the Atlantic Schooners "kitchen party" at York the Hotel, featuring the Saskatchewan Roughriders Pep Band (loud! fun!), last year's "Touchdown Atlantic" exhibition game (yes, Dan and I were there too) on the video projection screen, and a chance to drink Keith's with none other than Tom Wright, outgoing commish of the CFL. He told me, as I'm sure he's told many people, that if the 2014 Commonweath Games come to Halifax with the requisite stadium building, so will a new CFL franchise.

Sign on the wall at the party: "Thank you Tom Wright. We appreciate your efforts on East Coast Expanision" (sic).