A FOND FINAL FAREWELL TO DEAR OL’ TAYLOR FIELD
Void still to digest, but teardown is never so final for those with warm memories
The other day, while driving past Mosaic Stadium, I couldn’t see Mosaic Stadium.
It was rather unsettling. The former Taylor Field — located only a few blocks away from the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ $278-million pigskin palace — was no longer visible.
In a sense, it shouldn’t have been surprising, let alone as jarring as it turned out to be.
After all, I have written many times in recent years about the fate of Piffles Taylor’s old playground. Articles, columns and entire magazines have been devoted to the stadium issue.
Nonetheless, I did a double take while motoring eastward, with the new stadium to my right.
Where was the Mosaic Stadium sign that had been affixed to the back of the upper deck? Where was the upper deck, for that matter?
For some reason, the glaring void in the skyline hadn’t become apparent until then, even though the controlled collapse of the west-side grandstand had taken place on Oct. 27.
Not even two months later, I sat in the car at a red light and stared at the all-consuming emptiness that was once Taylor Field.
Eventually, green was the colour, so I proceeded directly toward my former second home to see what, if anything, remained.
There was gnarled metal, some of which once adorned the upper deck.
As one who proudly owned a season ticket in Section 204 for nearly 40 years, it felt strange to see all that nothingness.
I can recall the years when the on-field product, such as it was, resembled nothingness. The final nine years of the Reign Of Error — an 11-season stretch in which the Roughriders failed to make the CFL playoffs — were spent at the expanded Taylor Field.
Even on the worst days, the games never lost their appeal. The Roughriders at their worst provided some comic relief, if nothing else. At the other end of the spectrum, there were classic games and extraordinary plays.
Taylor Field’s playing surface was a stage for George Reed, Ron Lancaster and so many other Roughriders luminaries whose excellence fuelled my football addiction.
For the longest time, I figured the players would come and go, but the one constant would be the venue. Another prediction gone horribly wrong.
Everything began to change in 2007, when head coach Kent Austin and general manager Eric Tillman were the architects of a storybook season that culminated in an unexpected Grey Cup championship.
Suddenly, there was a voracious appetite for Roughriders tickets — a pronounced contrast to that chilly day in 1999 when I sat with Dr. Mark Anderson in Section 204, Row 14. There wasn’t a soul in the 13 rows below us — and the inadequacies of the aging stadium were all too apparent.
Before too long, stadiumrelated discussion advanced beyond measures that could be taken to bring Taylor Field up to standard. Instead, there was talk of a new edifice — even a dome! — and, well, take a gander at the Roughriders’ current confines. It is indeed a spectacular structure.
Yet, part of me will always dearly miss the old place. I’ll feel more comfortable, mind you, when the wreckage has been cleaned up and a new neighbourhood has risen.
The current, er, landscape isn’t easy on the eyes, but how does one refrain from looking?
Particularly eye-catching are the toppled light standards. The towers had stood since the 1950s, helping to illuminate Ronnie, George, Frank Tripucka, Ron Atchison, Hugh Campbell, Bill Baker, Roger Aldag, Joey Walters, Bobby Jurasin, Ray Elgaard, Jeff Fairholm, Don Narcisse, Kerry Joseph, John Chick, Weston Dressler, Darian Durant ... everyone I had seen in green before Oct. 29, 2016.
Even so, I had never stopped to take a long look at the light standards, until they were sitting sideways on the ground.
Another eye-opener was the sheer size of the stadium grounds. Everything appeared to be more compact when it was a functional football facility. Remove the grandstands, enter the bulldozers, and suddenly the expanse of land is considerably larger than it was perceived to be.
And to think that, not even a decade ago, there was discussion about possibly covering the playing surface during the winter and making Taylor Field accessible year-round.
So much for the bubble. Now there’s just rubble.
As one who proudly owned a season ticket for nearly 40 years, it felt strange to see all that nothingness.