CFL: Winnipeg fan accepts consolation prizes after million-dollar heartbreak
Karen Kuldys is going to the Grey Cup.
The Winnipeg fast-food worker who nearly won a $1-million prize in Thursday night’s game between the Argonauts and Blue Bombers — a controversial penalty flag nixed it — was wooed by the Canadian Football League on Friday in an effort to make amends.
“We’re all fans and whatever team you root for, we would all love to see a CFL fan win a million dollars,” new league commissioner Randy Ambrosie said in a statement. “So we all feel for Karen and what she must have gone through last night, and what she must be feeling today . . . on behalf of the CFL, I invited her and her family to come to the Grey Cup this year as our guests.”
Kuldys — whose plight spawned the hashtag #WhatAboutKaren, a trending topic on Twitter after the costly call on the field — also gets season tickets from the Blue Bombers for the rest of this year and 2018, plus free groceries for a year from Safeway/ Sobeys, which sponsors the contest. Later, the Air Miles program, also involved in the giveaway, stepped up with 500,000 miles for Kuldys, worth about $50,000.
“I know Karen’s a Blue Bomber fan and her son plays football, so we spoke with (the Bombers),” Ambrosie added. “We all know these things can’t compare to a million dollars but we wanted to do something to let her and her family know that we all wished she could have won last night.”
Kuldys, who watched the Bombers’ 33-25 win on TV with her husband, told CBC Winnipeg that she would have used the money to pay off the mortgage on their home, and to help daughter Michelle extend her maternity leave.
“I’m kind of stunned,” Kuldys told the network. “I didn’t really understand what was happening to begin with. But my husband said if it wasn’t for that penalty, we would have won one million dollars. I couldn’t believe it. One bad call away from one million dollars.
“I’m not a gambler by any means. I buy 6/49 tickets. This is as close as I’ve ever come to winning something like this.”
Each game, one fan — drawn from entries by Sobeys customers who use Air Miles — has a chance to win $1 million if two kickoffs are returned for touchdowns, a rare feat in the CFL.
The Bombers got the ball rolling when Ryan Lankford returned the opening kick for a major. Kuldys — who works the early-morning shift at a local A&W — gets a $25,000 home-theatre package for that.
In the second quarter, though, a borderline illegal block flagged behind the play wiped out a TD kickoff return by the Argos’ Martese Jackson — who also ran back a punt for a major in the first quarter.
There was an immediate outpouring of support for Kuldys on social media. One user tweeted a clip of Tom Cruise’s famous “Show me the money” scene from the movie Jerry Maguire.
TSN commentators highlighted the fact that the block had no impact on the play, while Kuldys told CBC that, despite cheering for the Bombers, she thought it was “a really, really bad call.”
On Friday, Ambrosie said it “could have gone either way.”
“There are tough calls made all the time in our game because these are world-class athletes, moving at tremendous speeds, and we ask our officials to make difficult judgment calls in the blink of an eye, and we have to respect their decisions.”
This year’s Grey Cup game is in Ottawa on Nov. 26.