WHAT NEXT AFTER THIS ARGO LOVE-IN?
City fired up about its Grey Cup champs, but will they forget about them next year?
Larry Tanenbaum looked out, far into the large Nathan Phillips Square crowd all dressed up in Double Blue and turned to his friend and lawyer, Dale Lastman, and said: “How great is this?” He was correct.
There have not been many Toronto championship celebrations in most of our lives. There were the Blue Jays parades of 1992 and 1993. There were the Argos’ attempts at parades for Grey Cup victories that came after the Joe Carter home run. There was the civic celebration that came after the Argos won the 100th Grey Cup in 2012, which didn’t seem energized the way Tuesday’s celebration certainly was.
This alive. This dedicated. This engaged. This lively. This real — as real as the Argos can be as a sporting option in this city of too many teams and too many leagues.
I’ve covered five Argo Grey Cups and there were victories by the Boatmen in each. Tuesday’s celebration at City Hall seemed to resonate stronger than any before that I could remember.
Maybe it was the magic of this season that defies explanation, the story so rich and so fascinating. The late hirings of the general manager and coach. The roster almost bare. The search for coaches. The fight to finish 9-9 after winning just four of their first 11 games. The halfempty stadium at BMO Field. The last-minute drive against Saskatchewan in the Eastern Final in front of a near-sellout crowd for the first time. The unfathomable Grey Cup won in the snow of Ottawa: The Argos were down, out and then champions. Just like that.
Who doesn’t love this kind of impossible story?
And the question, on this day of laughing and cheering and hugging and more cheering, was: How do they turn today into tomorrow? How do you take the feeling from Nathan Phillips Square, that feeling of elation, that feeling of needing to be part of something special, and translate it to next season, to ticket sales, to Argo interest, to a public that is seemingly less involved than maybe it has ever been before?
In 2004, when the Argos won the Grey Cup — that time in Ottawa as well — and came home from their celebration, co-owner Howard Sokolowski thought it would translate to ticket sales for 2005. It did not.
In 2012, after the buildup to the historic 100th Grey Cup game in Toronto, a win in front of a sellout at Rogers Centre and a feel-good week of Canadiana, owner David Braley didn’t sell one additional season ticket.
So here we are, hearts still beating from Sunday night, cheers still coming, excitement still being felt and Mayor John Tory advised the crowd at City Hall to go home, click on the Argonauts website, and order your tickets.
There are plenty of good seats available at BMO Field, a stadium without a single bad seat. The message from the mayor, from the owners, from the management of the Argos, was unlike the message at most championship celebrations.
The subtext of Tuesday’s football love-in was rather basic. Maybe general manger Jim Popp, now owner of five CFL championships, said it best: “If you’re not a believer, start believing. If you haven’t joined our family, join our family. Join the Love Boat. It’s setting sail.”
No music came after that. But I could hear Jack Jones singing. “Come aboard, we’re expecting you.”
Popp was on message. He is the latest to come to Toronto and believe winning will turn the Argos’ business fortunes around.
The attitude is wonderful. The naiveté is something else: Doug Flutie won two straight Grey Cups on the greatest Argo teams in history and they did poorly at the box office. At a different point in time, before there were Blue Jays, before there were Raptors, before there was a soccer team that mattered, the Argos didn’t come close to winning a Grey Cup in the ’60s or ’70s and the fan base was never more passionate.
It’s never been about winning in Toronto with this team. It’s been about being the place to be. This is a place-to-be town. The Argos have to find a place somewhere on that entry list.
Those who shrug their shoulders and claim it’s only a nineteam league and it’s easy to win weren’t around when they didn’t win for decades. Those same people rarely diminish the four Stanley Cups the Maple Leafs won in the 1960s, when the NHL was a six-team league. Those titles are cherished. Now the Argos win in Ray Days instead of Hey Days, victorious in a game we’ll never forget on a night that looked like a piece of Canadian art. And there was Ricky Ray holding the Grey Cup over his head for everyone to see and cheer on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.
“Thank you Toronto,” said Tanenbaum, the co-owner of the Argos, Raptors, Leafs and Toronto FC, who rarely says anything for public consumption.
In fairness, he never had this opportunity before. He jumped aboard Popp’s Love Boat for his maiden voyage as a champion. He hopes there will be more days like this one, and with thousands filling the square by City Hall, you couldn’t help but wonder what this day will be like if it was his Maple Leafs winning.
“What a day,” he said. “What a team. What a victory for our Argos.”
What a day to remember. What a feel-good sunny day. With plenty of good seats now available. All you have to do is call.