Empty Mosaic Stadium now sits as silent as a tomb
Mosaic Stadium is, for the foreseeable future, a green-andwhite elephant.
Officially opened in 2017, at a cost of $278 million, the replacement for dear old Taylor Field was the type of pigskin palace the Saskatchewan Roughriders and their loyalists had been craving.
From the moment the first shovel dislodged some dirt a few first downs away from Elphinstone Street, there was talk about when — not if — Regina would next play host to a Grey Cup.
Once the inevitable announcement was made, the buzz surrounded plans for having the entire football festival contained within the expansive Evraz Place grounds.
Nov. 22, 2020 — game day — would have been circled on calendars if not for the fact that, really, nobody circles anything on a calendar anymore.
And now …
Uncertainty.
Unease.
With the arrival of May, denizens of the greater Regina area should be excitedly awaiting the kickoff of a rare Mosaic-based training camp.
The Roughriders’ pep band should be preparing to welcome quarterback Cody Fajardo upon his arrival at Regina International Airport.
COVID -19 has changed all of that, and so much more.
On Thursday, the CFL conducted a 2020 draft without knowing whether there will be any semblance of a 2020 season.
Nobody is blessed with 20-20 foresight.
The smartest people in the world are at a loss to project with any precision when the first wave of the pandemic will disappear, or whether there will be a second (and perhaps a third) wave.
Any gathering of 10 or more people is frowned upon, so where does that leave the 13th man?
Nonetheless, there are hopes that 33,000-plus people will congest Mosaic Stadium on Nov. 22, and that social distancing will be but a memory during the final few months of this wretched year, 2020.
There are, of course, issues of infinitely greater magnitude than whether Canadian professional football can be played this year.
Lives and livelihoods are at stake.
Nothing can really return to normal, whatever that is, until someone develops a desperately needed vaccine en route to collecting his or her Nobel — or Noble, in the words of the most ignoble Donald J. Trump — Prize.
At this point, the big question about Fajardo does not pertain to whether he can reprise his brilliance of 2019 and lead the Green and White to the franchise’s fifth CFL title.
Instead, people wonder when he, or any American player, will be able to cross the border and enter Canada.
Crossing the goal-line used to be the priority, but these are different, desperate times.
Consider CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s plea to the federal government for up to $150 million in financial assistance for the league. The highend figure, as proposed by the league, would be applicable in the event that the entire 2020 season is ash-canned.
“One of the things, I think, that the CFL and all of us who love the league pride ourselves on is we’re striving to be very optimistic,” Ambrosie told Dan Ralph of The Canadian Press. “But to be realistic, the kinds of losses (resulting from a scrapped season) could have an effect on the future of this league.”
Not long ago, it seemed that we were far past any such doomsday discussion.
The CFL was in a constant death-watch mode in the mid1990s. Since then, there have been trouble spots here and there, but the league’s viability has not been an issue.
And know, who knows?
“We had challenges when I was there, but absolutely nothing like this,” Jim Hopson, who was the Roughriders’ president-ceo from 2005 to 2015, told the Regina Leader-post’s Murray Mccormick on Wednesday. “It’s not only the team, but it’s the entire league that is in jeopardy.”
That may seem far-fetched, but consider this: A few months ago, did anyone envision the catastrophic effects COVID -19 would have on people’s lives and on the economy?
Sporting schedules screeched to a halt in March. Schools, restaurants and so many businesses are closed.
At this rate, some do-it-yourself haircuts may be performed with the assistance of a weed whacker.
A modicum of optimism can be derived from the fact that Premier Scott Moe has announced plans to systemically reopen the province.
But the reopening of Mosaic Stadium, this $278-million shrine to a better time, isn’t anywhere on the horizon.