Riderville plans to show its stuff during Grey Cup
Host city Regina should have plenty to offer for 108th CFL championship
REGINA It didn’t take long for Randy Ambrosie to realize he was in Rider Nation.
The CFL commissioner hadn’t even disembarked from his flight at Regina International Airport when he was approached by a restless fan of the Saskatchewan Roughriders who wondered about the possibility of the home team being part of the 108th championship game this year in Regina.
“I’ve been here now for about 16 hours,” Ambrosie said Friday during a media conference at Mosaic Stadium. “I’ve only been asked four times if I can guarantee that the Riders will be in the game (laughs). I said to all four of those people, ‘No, I can’t guarantee that, but I am absolutely certain that I can guarantee this will be one of the greatest Grey Cups in CFL history.’ ”
It’s an ambitious goal but one that the local organizing committee embraced during the bid process last year.
It’ll be the first Grey Cup at new Mosaic Stadium, which opened in 2017. “This is an opportunity to continue to raise the bar,” said Riders president/ceo Craig Reynolds, who doubles as a Grey Cup Festival co-chair.
“What has happened — and it’s full credit to Randy and his vision for what a Grey Cup can become and the bid process — is you’re forced to continually raise the bar. I know when we submitted the bid we had to think bold and we had to think big. That’s partly why we won the bid.”
It might also have something to do with Saskatchewan’s reputation for taking the CFL’S showcase event to another level — most recently in 2013.
This year is expected to be no different.
“I’ve been travelling the country and people are talking about this Grey Cup,” Ambrosie said. “I think they’re anxious to come here. That’s a testimony to the whole Riderville vibe and, frankly, Western hospitality and Saskatchewan hospitality. Those things are at the heart of what is causing people to want to be here.”
In other words, Saskatchewan is a place where the CFL matters.
“I think it’s pretty clear this is a community that loves their football team and literally football is everywhere,” Ambrosie continued. “You get off the plane, you’re walking through the airport, you know where you are. You can just feel it. This is the home of the Riders.”
With that comes pressure to deliver a top-notch experience on the national stage. But Reynolds welcomes the challenge.
“There are huge expectations but I will say we have incredible volunteers who are incredibly committed,” he said. “We’ll have a lot of future announcements but it is going to be big. Just think about the street festival here on the grounds — 415,000 square feet of activation space. And then, of course, the stadium. The stadium is going to raise the bar for Grey Cups as well.
“It’s Canada’s newest stadium, and arguably Canada’s best stadium, so I think the Grey Cup will showcase really, really well here.”
Ambrosie thinks so, too, calling Mosaic Stadium a “cathedral to football.” But that’s only part of the reason why Saskatchewan is viewed as a special place to host the Grey Cup. “There are so many elements to this that were impressive,” said the commissioner. “It was almost overwhelming the number of things they were talking about doing and doing well. The whole package was just a site to behold. It made for an easy Grey Cup 108 decision.”
Now it’s up to the Riders to put the icing on the cake, much like they did in 2013.
“It’s really hard to get to the Grey Cup and it has been traditionally really hard for the host city to be in the game,” Ambrosie said. “I don’t think it would be surprising for anyone to know that it would be powerful (to have Saskatchewan in the game).
“But there is also something to the value of one of the other western teams playing an eastern team here at this beautiful location. I think it’s a win-win.
“If the Riders make it in, obviously that’s going to be special. But if the Riders don’t, I think it’s going to be special as well.”