Cautious optimism from Als diehard
Longtime season-ticket holder is cautiously optimistic about this year
Half an hour before kickoff Thursday night at Molson Stadium, Tony Evans was in his seat in Row 1 of Section F2 near midfield.
“I always get excited for the first game of the year,” Evans said while wearing an Alouettes cap and jersey with No. 1 and his name on the back.
“Particularly this year because there’s been so many changes.”
There might not be another football fan in Montreal who has watched more Alouettes games live than Evans, a 77-year-old retired high-school teacher. He can’t remember the first Alouettes game he ever attended as a kid — “it was too long ago” — but Evans does still have his seasonticket invoice from the 1976 season when the Alouettes played at the old Autostade.
“That’s the oldest invoice I can find,” Evans said, noting his midfield tickets back then cost $8.50 per game.
He has been a season-ticket holder ever since — apart from the Alouettes’ nine-year hiatus after folding in 1987 — and has had the same three seats at Molson Stadium since the team moved there from Olympic Stadium in 1998. Thursday night, as the Alouettes kicked off the CFL season against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Evans was joined by his daughter, Lisa, and son-inlaw David Furey.
Evans, who lives in Ormstown, used to be Furey’s football coach and math teacher at Châteauguay Valley High School, and Furey met his future wife when they were both on basketball teams at the school. Furey and Lisa are both teachers at Châteauguay Valley, following in Evans’s footsteps.
Evans grew up playing football and was part of the 1964 Bishop’s University team that won the Ottawa-St. Lawrence Athletic Association championship. He also used to be a football referee. The man loves the game. “I’ve enjoyed every year,” he said about watching the Alouettes live.
His tickets this season cost $129 each.
“The ticket prices have gone up a lot over the years, but so have the salaries and they have more players now,” Evans said. “They’re paying (new quarterback Darian) Durant a lot of money, so they have to find that money somewhere.
“I pretty well grew up with the Alouettes,” he added.
“I remember Sam Etcheverry, Herb Trawick, George Dixon. I was at the game where I almost left at McGill Stadium when they were down by three touchdowns with four minutes to go and everybody was leaving. They came back and won and it was because of George Dixon.”
When asked who his favourite all-time Alouettes player is, Evans said: “George Dixon would rank up there … Sam Etcheverry would rank up there … Hal Patterson would rank up there … Peter Dalla Riva.”
His favourite current Alouettes player?
“I’m trying to find a favourite player on the current team, but they keep changing them on me,” he said with a chuckle. “Every time I find a current player I like, they trade him. My most recent one was Bear Woods.”
The Alouettes cut Woods, a linebacker, at training camp and he’s now with the Toronto Argonauts, who also have former Montreal general manager Jim Popp and head coach Marc Trestman.
The new Alouettes GM is Kavis Reed and Jacques Chapdelaine is head coach. Those are two of many changes to the new-look Alouettes, who have missed the playoffs the last two seasons.
“The last two seasons haven’t been too good, but they haven’t had a quarterback,” Evans said.
“We’ll see whether they have a quarterback in Durant now, but do they have any receivers left? They’ve gotten rid of a lot of their receivers, but maybe they have some good receivers that we don’t know about.”
Among Evans’s favourite memories as an Alouettes fan is the 1977 Grey Cup at Olympic Stadium that was dubbed the Ice Bowl, with the Alouettes beating the Edmonton Eskimos 41-6 on a frozen field. He also enjoyed the 2009 Grey Cup in Calgary when the Roughriders “gave the Alouettes the game” with a too-manymen-on-the-field penalty.
“That was a good moment,” he said.
Another good moment was when the Alouettes invited Evans to perform the official coin toss before a game at Molson Stadium last season. As far as the Alouettes know, Evans is their longest season-ticket holder, but their records only go back to 1996, when the team returned after folding in 1987.
“There have been ups and there have been downs over the years,” Evans said about watching the Alouettes. “The last two years have been a lot of downs.”
What are his expectations for this season?
“I expect them to do well,” Evans said before pausing.
“I’ll rephrase that,” he then continued. “I hope they’ll do well and I hope they will get into the playoffs. But it’s a long season and until some of the new receivers prove themselves and the offensive line that was terrible last year improves, it may be a long season.”
Whatever happens, Evans plans to be there to watch every game at Molson Stadium.
I’m trying to find a favourite player on the current team, but they keep changing them on me. Every time I find a current player I like, they trade him.