GREY CUP DREAMS
Ottawa’s hope for 2017
So, your Grey Cup weather forecast for Ottawa on Sunday:
Plus 6. Cloudy, with a few showers.
Not bad for Nov. 30 in the Nation’s Capital.
Only one problem: The game will be in Vancouver under cover at BC Place stadium.
It’s hard to imagine now, but the 2014 Grey Cup was once slated for Ottawa, awarded conditionally when the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) was granted a conditional franchise in 2008. In those days of innocence, the thinking was that old Frank Clair Stadium could be patched up and polished in time for the team to rejoin the league as early as 2010.
That was before it was discovered the south-side stands were rotting beyond repair and would have to be demolished, and before the slew of approvals, lawsuits and construction schedules that pushed back Ottawa’s CFL venture for years. A 2014 Grey Cup in Ottawa? Try — 2014, the Ottawa Redblacks’ debut season. As it was, crews were putting finishing touches on the remodelled TD Place stadium, including new south-side stands, as the 2014 season progressed.
The privilege of hosting a Grey Cup will be there soon enough for Ottawa and OSEG, likely to coincide with the myriad 150th Canadian birthday celebrations planned for the capital region in 2017. As far as the Redblacks’ development as a football operation, the timing could be good.
The 2017 season will be Ottawa’s fourth, giving the Redblacks an opportunity to grow into a more competitive team before taking on Grey Cup host duties. In theory, a host team should be capable of being in the game.
Redblacks president Jeff Hunt knew better than to stage a Grey Cup game too early in the life of the franchise.
“The conventional wisdom is you want it three or four years after starting a team,” Hunt has said.
Let’s hope this organization has a better shot at being a playoff contender than the last go-round, the Renegades. As recently as 10 years ago, Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park was the site of a Grey Cup game between the Toronto Argos and B.C. Lions. (Oddly, the Lions have been the western representative at each of the last two Ottawa Grey Cups, in 2004 and 1988.)
The Renegades started operations in 2002 and had the carrot of a Grey Cup game in their third season. Unfortunately, after a promising 7-11 sophomore season, the old ‘Gades regressed to 5-13 and didn’t get a sniff of a playoff position. Their best seasons were years two and four, both third-place finishes with 7-11 records.
Then they disappeared, leaving behind such scorched soil at Lansdowne there was talk the CFL would never come back.
To its great advantage, Ottawa is capital of a country with limited suitable CFL cities. In a league of only eight franchises — before Ottawa’s return — and a compulsion to get to 10 (c’mon, Halifax), there was always opportunity for a relaunch here, if done properly. Under OSEG, a group of local, well-heeled partners, there is unlimited potential to get it right.
Despite a 2-16 record out of the gate, the Redblacks filled a 24,000-seat stadium for nine straight games. As bad as that win-loss record looks on paper, the RBs were in most of those games, and here’s the best news of all: the East Division is a friendly place to conduct football business in the post-Anthony Calvillo era.
As they watch Sunday’s game between the favoured West Division champion Calgary Stamped- ers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the Redblacks will be thinking about that 9-9 Hamilton team.
Believe it or not, not a single team in the East Division had a winning record this season, two .500 clubs and the 8-10 Toronto Argos ahead of Ottawa.
This is Hamilton’s second straight Cup berth. In 2013, the Ticats were 10-8, but gave up more points than they scored. A juggernaut they were not.
All this to say that the Redblacks have a chance to be relatively decent if they can get their act together offensively.
“The East is wide open again next season,” said quarterback Henry Burris in an interview on TSN 1200 this week. Burris will be, should be, challenged to hold the starting job. And the offence desperately needs a receiving threat. Then, let’s see what they can do.
The conventional wisdom is you want it three or four years after starting a team.
It is so easy to make the CFL playoffs, with six of nine qualifying, the wonder is that Ottawa teams managed to miss as often as they did. The Renegades had zero playoff dates in four seasons. The Rough Riders failed to qualify in four straight seasons from 1986-89, and in their final two seasons of existence, 1995 and ‘96.
In those years Ottawa most recently qualified, from 199094, the Riders had records of 7-11, 7-11, 9-9 (featuring a stellar defence on the 1992 club), 4-14 and 4-14. Mediocrity has its rewards. The Riders reached the Grey Cup with a 5-11 record in 1981, and should have won the big game, but for a ridiculous interference call late in the 4th quarter of a game Edmonton eventually won 26-23.
The Riders had a 20-1 lead at halftime.
For the Redblacks, getting a foot in the door, in the next year or two, is a reasonable goal.