Grey Cup runneth over with names
• There are 3,641 names inscribed on t he Grey Cup trophy honouring t he Canadian Football League’s best.
Another 48 — 44 f or active- roster players and four for administrators or coaches — will be added to a plaque on behalf of the winning side in Sunday’s title game between the Ottawa Redblacks and Calgary Stampeders at BMO Field.
A couple of months after the 2017 Grey Cup game in Ottawa, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame will add another plaque with another 48 names, and that will use up all the room there is to be used. Then what? Mark DeNobile, executive director of the Hamiltonbased shrine, said CFL representatives were considering options, but hadn’t yet come to any conclusions.
“It’s just a matter of working out a solution that is suitable, not just for the league, but also for the past winners,” DeNobile said in a telephone interview.
The trophy commissioned in 1909 by Earl Grey, then Canada’s governorgeneral, stands approximately 37 inches high and 21 inches wide at its base, and it weighs roughly 30 pounds.
And, it turns out, there are two identical “barrels,” each bearing a plaque for every Grey Cup- winning team, that can be attached to the familiar chalice sitting on top.
It’s somewhat fitting that the Grey Cup will be remade following the final presentation in its current form at Lansdowne Park next year because it was stolen from an office there in 1969.
The thieves demanded ransom, but the CFL refused to pay and the trophy turned up later in a locker in Toronto some weeks later.
Seven years after that the Grey Cup was captured by the last Ottawa- based CFL champions, the 1976 Rough Riders, with 38 names being added to mark that occasion: 35 players; owner David Loeb; general manager Frank Clair and head coach George Brancato.
The Grey Cup- winning team normally is granted custody of the trophy for two months following the game, but it can apply for an extension before returning it to its custodians at the hall of fame. Legally, the trophy remains the property of the CFL.