Riders Arrive in Calgary

Courtesy of TSN.ca

CALGARY — The Saskatchewan Roughriders touched down Tuesday on what they consider friendly territory for the Grey Cup.

Given the number of people from Saskatchewan who live in Calgary and the car loads expected to arrive from that province this week, the players say McMahon Stadium will feel like Regina’s Mosaic Stadium when they face the Montreal Alouettes in Sunday’s CFL championship game (TSN, 6:30 p.m. ET).

“Even during the season when we come out here, it’s filled with green in that stadium,” Roughrider quarterback Darian Durant said. “To play this game out here will definitely be an advantage for us.”

The ‘Riders, 10-7-1 this season, got a taste of the support they expect this week when they were greeted Tuesday by a high school band and drill team, plus a few green-clad autograph seekers, at the Calgary airport.

“Ray Charles is going to be able to see the amount of green we have coming here on Sunday, so it’s awesome,” defensive back Stevie Baggs declared.

The Alouettes, 15-3, were scheduled to arrive with less fanfare near midnight Tuesday.

The Roughriders feel they’ll need that home-field advantage. They arrived in Calgary playing the underdog card and pointed to the Alouettes’ stellar record this season.

Montreal beat Saskatchewan in two meetings this season by a total score of 77-35.

“You look at their record, look at their statistics, look at just about everything and you would say, statistically and record-wise, they deserve to be the favourite in the game,” head coach Ken Miller said.

Saskatchewan advanced to its second Grey Cup in three years with a 27-14 win over the Calgary Stampeders in the West Division final, while the Alouettes dominated the B.C. Lions 56-18 to take the East.

The Roughriders moved into the Stampeders dressing room, which Calgary vacated Monday. Saskatchewan didn’t lose a game at McMahon this season with a win and a tie there against the Stampeders.

“It’s been a pretty good stadium for us this year,” Durant said. “With the backing we have, even if you look back at the Grey Cup in Toronto (two years ago), it was full of green there, this will be twice as better for us.”

Veteran defensive end Eddie Davis, a former Stampeder who intended to reclaim his old dressing room spot, feels his team has appeal across the country.

“It brought the whole province together and it’s bringing all the Saskatchewan people from all over Canada together,” Davis said. “I guess you could say we’re Canada’s team. We’re just trying to keep this thing rolling and this could be like a Cinderella-type story.”

While the Grey Cup game is sold out, there were plenty of options online as disappointed Stampeder fans put their tickets up for auction.

Saskatchewan and Montreal will meet in the Grey Cup for the first time Sunday. Both rosters have players with considerable Grey Cup experience. The Riders won the title two years ago by beating Winnipeg in the title game.

It will be the Als’ seventh championship game since 2000. Their lone victory over that period came in 2002.

While the countdown is on for all of Canada towards the 97th Grey Cup set to be held at McMahon Stadium in Calgary on November 29th I have my own countdown on – about 35 hours until I hit the road to Calgary to take in all the Grey Cup festivities.

I’ve been to one Grey Cup prior to this and that was the 91st Grey Cup held in Regina back in 2003. That game pitted the Montreal Alouettes against the eventual champions Edmonton Eskimos. While I enjoyed the experience I wasn’t “of age” yet so my options for Grey Cup entertainment were severly limited, but, despite that I had a great time and I’m anticipating that now at 21 I’ll have a lot more opportunity to “take in the full Grey Cup Festival”.

I can only imagine how crazy things are going to be in Calgary considering even Riders/Stamps games during the regular season the crowd is at the very least a 50/50 split. Tons of Stamps fans are in the midst of unloading their Grey Cup tickets on the internet to Rider fans who are getting set to take over Cow-Town in the coming days. My guess is a 90/10 split of Rider fans to Als fans which will give a definite advantage to the Riders, one which they’re going to need if they hope to beat the seemingly unstoppable Montreal Alouettes.

I’m planning on going more in depth into the Grey Cup match-up itself later in the week once I arrive in Calgary. I will say right now though, being a die-hard Rider fan, it will be a VERY tough task to bring down the Al’s. Having said that if I had to put money on anyone in the CFL to do it it would be the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

As I said earlier I’m heading to Calgary Thursday morning and should arrive in Calgary by about mid-afternoon, just enough time to get settled, have a bite to eat, and head out to Riderville for the evening. I’m planning on bringing the camera along and trying to photo-blog as much as I can, my goal is to give you guys an idea of what it’s like in Calgary at the Grey Cup Festival and hopefully make you feel like you’re here.

One more quick note. If you’re looking for every piece of Grey Cup info you can find this week I’d suggest heading over to TSN.ca. They’ve got tons of Grey Cup articles everyday as well as many videos and a daily Rountable talk with the CFL on TSN Panel.

EDIT – CFL and NFL Weekly Highlights are up on the “Weekly Highlights” page. Complete highlights from every NFL and CFL game this week are all on one page for quick easy access.