Double Drought Bowl
It’s been decades since either the Hamilton Tiger-cats or the Winnipeg Blue Bombers have hosted the Grey Cup
CALGARY — On Thursday of Grey Cup week, the fans show up, wearing their colours and costumes, heading to the streets and watering holes to commit hoopla.
Here this year, however, watching the hopeful fans from Winnipeg and Hamilton arrive has been worthy of a psychological study.
How high do they dare to let their hopes get?
Grey Cup 107 is the Double Drought Bowl.
For the Hamilton Tiger-cats, it’s been 20 years since they previously hoisted the Cup. For the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, it’s been 29.
Of the Bombers’ 46-man roster for last weekend’s West final, 31 were not born when the blue and gold won it all in 1990.
But history also offers hope in Winnipeg, a.k.a. Loserpeg.
The two previous longest Grey Cup droughts in Bombers history ended with victories over Hamilton. One was a 17-season drought that ended in1958 when Bud Grant’s Bombers beat the Tiger-cats 35-28. And a 22year drought was wiped away in 1984 with another victory over Hamilton.
Senior citizens will remember the great Bombers-ticats classic Grey Cup classics in 1957, ’58, ’59, ’61, ’62 and ’65. Only once since then have they met in a Grey Cup game and that was in 1984.
The suffering of the fanbases of the two teams may be felt much more than the players. But the suffering is definitely shared by the two head coaches involved.
“I think as we consistently built this team from six years ago, the expectations have got much higher in Winnipeg and they should,” said Bombers’ Mike O’shea.
“And I do think the players definitely know about how long it has been. They hear about it when they are out in the community.
“We have a great fan base that’s, you know, very intelligent and very respectful when you’re out in the community. So those conversations aren’t anything that the players should shy away from or that we shy away from. But some of the players would know the year that it was last won. So we have to live in the present and worry about this year and not worry about the previous whatever number that is.”
Some of the players on that 1990 Bombers championship team included Matt Dunigan, Milt Stegall, James West, Khari Jones, Greg Battle, Lyle Bauer, Chris Walby, Tyrone Jones, Doug Brown, Charles Roberts and Troy Westwood.
Several of those Bombers are here for the game, including Dunigan and Stegall, who are working the game as TV commentators for TSN.
Another is West who I caught up with here on Thursday.
“When you have a 29-year drought like this, it’s pretty much self-inflicted,” said West, 64. “If the people aren’t in place at the
“I wouldn’t say that the drought is a focal point. I don’t think it’s an extra motivator. But I do think there’s a common respect amongst our football team for those people who came before us.”
Orlondo Steinauer Ticats’ head coach
top to allow it to flourish, they fail.
“To me it has been kind of shameful for Winnipeg because historically the best teams in the CFL have always been Winnipeg and Edmonton. So I’m kind of glad in the last few years they changed.”
West and his wife are here to enjoy the festivities and he says so far most of the Winnipeg fans he’s bumped into are apprehensive.
“I think that’s the right word to capture how they’re going to go to the game,” he said. “Their hearts have been broken for a long time.”
For Hamilton, 1999 seems much more recent than Winnipeg’s 1990.
Part of that is the fact that head coach Orlondo Steinauer played for that team. And that group was just celebrated this season.
“For us, it was made aware as we honoured Rob Hitchcock this year. He went up on our Wall of Honour. So there was a pretty good celebration for the 20-year reunion that brought attention to it,” said the coach.
That team featured head coach Ron Lancaster who’d left the Edmonton Eskimos and took quarterback Danny Mcmanus and receiver Darren Flutie with him. Other familiar names on that team included Joe Montford, Calvin Tiggle, Grover Covington, Rocky Dipietro, Miles Gorrell and Paul Osbaldiston.
“The community is starving. Absolutely,” said Steinauer. “But I would say they’re more buzzing. I think the attention is coming from some of the achievement that we’ve had throughout the season,” he said of the franchise-high 15 wins and the only 9-0 regular season in Ticats history.
“I wouldn’t say that the drought is a focal point. I don’t think it’s an extra motivator. But I do think there’s a common respect amongst our football team for those people who came before us. In our locker room, we have the years that the Tigercats were Grey Cup champions. And there’s a bit of a gap. I’m not sure they pay attention to it daily, but they are aware of it.”
Steve Milton, who has been covering the Tiger-cats for 34 years for the Hamilton Spectator, said it’s been a journey. Here is how he put it to me between libations at a media party:
“It really eroded because the team was poorly owned,” he said. “They didn’t have the money. And the CFL was a mess. The team actually went bankrupt in 2003-04.
“But that’s where it began to turn. Bob Young came along to take over the franchise and he revived hope. What Bob saw that nobody else saw was that people in Hamilton still believed in the team but had all been really pushed down. It wasn’t just about not winning it was about not having proper ownership and belief in the league itself.
“This franchise was primarily built on two things. One was consistently kicking the crap out of the Toronto Argonauts and then shaming them even in the Argonauts best years.
“But the Argos had started to fade as a franchise.”