AMBROSIE SPEAKS PLAINLY AND HONESTLY ABOUT LEAGUE’S GOALS
New CFL commissioner a drastic change from the man he replaced months ago
Randy Ambrosie lumbered to the stage, took his phone out of his pocket, turned his back to the audience and snapped a selfie.
“I wanted to get a picture of this while we still like each other. This may be the first and last time right there.”
There was a lot to like about the new commissioner in his first State of the League press conference at the Grey Cup. The contrast with his predecessor was so complete it was unmistakable.
The CFL has clearly gone from The Great Pretender in Jeffrey Orridge to completely the opposite in terms of capable competence, complete with content and clarity.
For the previous two editions of the commissioner’s press conference, Orridge was all style and no substance — talk a lot and say nothing about anything of importance.
Orridge didn’t learn a thing from his first appearance to the second as he displayed the same bafflegab walk-you-around-theblock approach as he did the first time. He totally exposed himself as being dreadfully uninformed. His ignorance was astounding.
Orridge was fired and replaced by former CFL offensive lineman Randy Ambrosie, who won a Grey Cup in 1993 with the Edmonton Eskimos and had a successful business career.
Ambrosie had already established that he gets it and proved that on the job well before his hour-long session with the media here Friday.
Refreshing in his honestly and head-on approach to the challenges including “the elephant in the room” subject of concussions he so correctly identified, he became an easy guy for fans to cheer for as he worked his way through the session.
Ambrosie opened by getting personal.
“I’ve never felt more Canadian in my entire life,” he said.
“At this moment when the world is filled with madness and divisiveness, this league has a powerful connection to what Canada stands for. I’m walking through stadiums and meeting fans and while I’ve always been a proud Canadian, I’ve never been more proud to be Canadian than right now and I think it’s because of this league.”
Clearly Ambrosie doesn’t believe in the “under-promise and over-deliver” philosophy.
“I think this league can be two or three times bigger. I think we should be filled in every stadium every game. Every time we flip the coin the teams should be looking into full stands.”
He also spoke to the issue of the problem of the football operations departments having effectively been running the teams and how that has to change.
“I’ll be disappointed if I hadn’t spent a lot more time with our football people. I want them to be part of our solution,” he said.
“I think our coaches are all amazing but, as you all know, they are very protective. They put a bubble around the game because that’s how they think about it. I want to talk to our coaches and GMs about trying to open ourselves up.
“I want to see if we can help our football people be part of the business solution by allowing you to tell our story better. And all I think it’s going to take is just talking to each other and not telling them but explaining how these things can be done differently by giving them different examples of best practices from other leagues.
“I’ll be disappointed if that’s something we haven’t done.”
Ambrosie said he wants to have a serious study of moving the league schedule forward.
“I think we should seriously look at it. Can you imagine playing a Grey Cup in the third week of October when it’s beautiful everywhere and you don’t have to wear 900 layers of clothing? Can you imagine how much bigger the festival would be? I think through that lens it could be so cool for the CFL to do it.”