Ambrosie wants to bundle big games

U Sports final draws well in the Grey Cup city, but pairing them is tricky

CALGARY— The Vanier Cup will become part of Grey Cup again if the CFL commissioner gets his way.

Incorporating the Canadian university football championship into Grey Cup week is high on Randy Ambrosie’s to-do list.

“The opportunity to bring Grey Cup and Vanier Cup together is a very real possibility,” Ambrosie said.

“There are some details to be worked out, but it is something we’re committed to working towards.”

“I don’t think it’s out of line to say we’d like to see it happen as early as next year in Saskatchewan. I always try to be as ambitious as I possibly can so 2020 looks perfectly good to me.”

The 2019 Vanier Cup featuring the Calgary Dinos and Montreal Carabins is Saturday in Quebec City.

The CFL’s Hamilton TigerCats and Winnipeg Blue Bombers are Grey Cup combatants the following day in Calgary. USports CEO Graham Brown also wants the university football championship included in Grey Cup week. “The CFL has done an amazing job of creating that five-day festival football experience and lots going on,” he said.

“At the end of the day, you need to have fans in the stands and the partnership with the CFL and aligning Grey Cup and Vanier Cup pretty much assures that. That is really important to us right now.”

The Vanier Cup was played in the Grey Cup host city two days before the CFL’s championship game in 2007 and ’12 in Toronto, and 2011 in Vancouver.

The Laval Rouge Et Or and McMaster Marauders met in the games in 2011 and 2012 with each winning a title.

The 2012 Vanier Cup in Toronto’s Rogers Centre set an attendance record of 37,000.

“I remember coming out of the locker room and going out onto the field and feeling ‘Man, this is big time,’ ” said former CFL defensive lineman Ben D’Aguilar, a McMaster grad.

“It felt like that’s the stage we deserve to have,” he added.

Media rights and scheduling are hurdles to be cleared.

CFL rightsholder TSN also had Vanier Cup rights in 2011 and 2012, so meshing the two properties worked.

CBC is carrying Saturday’s Vanier Cup. TSN is broadcasting Sunday’s Grey Cup. Whether TSN would insist on having Vanier Cup rights is unclear.

“We don’t comment on rights negotiations,” Bell Media Sports spokesperson Rob Duffy said in an email.

The 2020 Grey Cup in Regina on Nov. 22 is also scheduled a week earlier than the Vanier Cup, Brown said.