Redblacks ownership honoured

Commissioner’s Award earned for successful launch of new franchise

Two victories in 18 games were far from enough to get the Ottawa Redblacks into the Canadian Football League playoffs.

Getting the city’s third CFL team on the field was noticed, though. The five partners making up the Ottawa Sports & Entertainment Group were the winners of the Commissioner’s Award for outstanding contributions to Canadian football Thursday night in Vancouver.

“It’s a recognition that we put in an awful lot of effort and we had a pretty successful year even if, un- fortunately, the results on the field didn’t show it,” OSEG chairman Roger Greenberg said. “We’ll try to get better on that next year.”

CFL commissioner Mark Cohon presented the award to Jeff Hunt, who was accompanied by chief executive Bernie Ashe. Greenberg, John Ruddy, Bill Shenkman and John Pugh fly to Vancouver on Friday to join them for league board of governors meetings and other Grey Cup events.

OSEG was granted a conditional franchise in March 2008, roughly two years after the league “suspended” Ottawa Renegades operations and nearly a dozen years after the 120-year-old Ottawa Rough Riders franchise had folded.

The new football team was to be major tenant of a rebuilt outdoor sports facility, now TD Place stadium, which was to be the anchor for a massive redevelopment that would also bring retail and residential development to Lansdowne Park.

It was tight, but stadium construction finished in time for the Redblacks’ first home game on July 18, and the Ottawa Fury FC moved in for the summer/fall portion of its first North American Soccer League season, too.

After edging the Toronto Argonauts 18-17 in that first home game, the Redblacks won only one more time: 42-20 against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Oct. 3.

However, OSEG staff quickly arranged a stirring tribute before the Redblacks’ matchup against the Montreal Alouettes on Oct. 24, which provided an emotional release for a city reeling from the killing of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial and an armed attack on Parliament Hill two days earlier.

A massive maple leaf flag measuring 80 yards long and 40 yards wide, borrowed from the Hamilton TigerCats, was unfurled for the singing of O Canada by the crowd of more than 24,000, one of nine sellouts in as many CFL games at the stadium.

That the Redblacks lost 15-7 to the Alouettes didn’t really matter.

Greenberg described it as an emotional evening and said the ceremony had been another in the surprising twists and turns in Year 1 for the Redblacks.

“To be able to pull off that as well as we did was a very, very tricky line to walk,” he said.

A year ago, at the time of the Grey Cup game in Regina, Redblacks staff included general manager Marcel Desjardins, assistant GM Brock Sunderland and scouting-department staffers Jeremy Snyder and Miles Gorrell. Fast-forward to today, Greenberg said, the team has head coach Rick Campbell, a slew of assistant coaches, medical, other staff members and more than 70 roster players.

Overall OSEG staff numbers about 120, and part-time hires increase that to more than 1,000 on game days, Greenberg added.

Now all CFL fans in Ottawa need — and expect — are more victories.

“We’ll make up for it next year by making our way to the Grey Cup,” Greenberg predicted with a chuckle, knowing full well there is a long way to go.