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Jeannine Ritchot recalls the fabulous birthday parties her parents threw for her when she was a youngster growing up outside Winnipeg, affairs that were so much more lavish and fun, and with more guests invited, than those her brother and sister ever received on their birthdays.
“I always teased my brother and sister about it, that they didn’t have the uncles and aunts coming over to our place,” she says.”But then when I was a teenager I realized that, ‘Oh, my god. These aren’t even for me. These are Grey Cup parties with a birthday cake that’s just thrown in there.’”
The realization didn’t chill her love for football however and when she moved to Ottawa to attend university, she continued to follow her beloved Blue Bombers. She bought season’s tickets for the 2006 Renegades season that never happened (“They never really got my heart,” she admits), and last year became a RedBlacks fan, relegating her Bombers to No. 2.
“I didn’t expect it. I thought I would always be a Winnipeg Blue Bombers fan first, but I’ve been in Ottawa for 21 years. I met my husband there, my life is there, my career is there. And now my team is there, and I care deeply about them.”
Ritchot is even a blogger and podcaster on Bleed RedBlacks. And, she note, she’ll turn 40 on Monday. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a Grey Cup for my birthday.”
Despite the RedBlacks’ brief tenure in the league, Ritchot and her husband are attending their ninth consecutive Grey Cup this year, loudly cheering on the RedBlacks.
“Craig and I make a little end-of-November vacation of it. You meet people from all over the country, and then when you come back the next year, it’s like a big reunion.”
At the 2012 Grey Cup in Toronto, for example, she recalls being in Riderville, the party put on by the Saskatchewan Roughriders. (All teams host parties during Grey Cup week. Some, like Regina, host parties every night). “I wanted to dance, but my husband doesn’t like to dance, and he also doesn’t like country music. A song came on and I asked him to dance and he said no. So this guy from Melford, Saskatchewan said, ‘Come on, we’ll go dance.’
“So we took a couple of turns around the dance floor, and came back and finished our beers and kept chit-chatting. And now every year, on the day that they leave Melford, Saskatchewan, getting in their car to drive to the Grey Cup, I get a text from him saying ‘Meet you in Riderville later on?’ And so we see each other every year and have a beer together. It just creates connections.”
This sentiment is echoed by fans of all teams during Grey Cup week. Winnipeg native John “Cooch” Couture has attended almost every Grey Cup since 1971, and even invited 10 “Grey Cuppers” – his term for the people he sees only at Grey Cups – to his wedding.
A fan of the sad-sack Blue Bombers, he says he’ll be cheering for Ottawa on Sunday.
“I love their story,” he says. “That a second-year team could win the Grey Cup is encouraging. I was thinking the Blue Bombers could fold in December and pretend they’re a new franchise, and maybe win in two years.”
Many fans describe the Grey Cup celebrations during the week leading up to the game as Canada’s biggest party, and they may be right. Apart from those arriving from every CFL city, they also arrive from former CFL cities.
“They’ll come here from Shreveport and Baltimore,” said Ron Boily, president of the Winnipeg Pin Collectors Club, from his table inside Winnipeg’s RBC Convention Centre, where many of the team parties take place. The camaraderie among fans is what makes this week unique, he says. Beside him, Scott McLeod displays some of the 1,323 CFL lapel pins in his collection, making it the largest of its kind in the world.
Even Ti-Cats fan Lance Whittaker, who’s still stinging from last weekend’s Eastern Conference final loss to Ottawa (“You guys shouldn’t be here,” he says of the RedBlacks), admits that he won’t be able to maintain his animosity towards Ottawa for much longer.
“It’s a lot of fun,” says the nine-time Grey Cupper. “It’s let-loose time, and it actually brings Canada together. People come from all over the country, they wear their colours, and everybody enjoys each other.”
Brent and Lois Duthie go to the Grey Cup every year.
For Ottawa residents and RedBlacks fans Brent and Lois Duthie, Grey Cup week is their annual trip. A Rough Riders season ticket holder in the 1970s, Brent says he didn’t see as many football games as he would have liked after he got married. “But when the Renegades came to town, my wife called me one day and said, ‘There’s going to be a Grey Cup in Ottawa and you’ve always wanted to go to one. I think you’d be sure to get a Grey Cup ticket if you bought season’s tickets.’
“So I hung up the phone and dialed up the Renegades and got season’s tickets.”
That was in 2004, and the couple hasn’t missed one since. And on two occasions that Vancouver hosted, the couple extended their trip to include a vacation in Hawaii.
“This is really our only trip,” says Brent. “This is how we spend our entertainment dollar. We don’t have a lot to go around, but we have fun with what we do.”
If you build it, the CFL may come
While the RedBlacks will host their team party at Earl’s bar on Saturday afternoon, other franchises throw bigger and longer celebrations, many of them at Winnipeg’s RBC Convention Centre.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders, for example, put on Riderville, a three-night party and the convention centre, with lots of music, line dancing and beer. The Edmonton Eskimos host the perennially popular Spirit of Edmonton party at a hotel closer to the airport.
One of the most popular parties, through, is for a team that not only doesn’t exists, and that never played a game: The Atlantic Schooners DownEast Kitchen Party, also at the RBC Convention Centre.
Halifax was awarded a franchise in 1984, and went about signing players and having uniforms made, and even bought a score clock from the New England Patriots, which is now in storage somewhere. Named the Atlantic Schooners in a fan contest, their logo showed a schooner in a stylized “A,” with four waves underneath representing the Maritime provinces.
But when it came time to play, well, there wasn’t a suitable stadium, and so the team folded.
Today, that non-existent team has, under the auspices of Haligonian John Ryerson and many other volunteers, hosted parties at nine of the last dozen Grey Cups, beginning in 2004 in Ottawa, where it set up camp in the Drill Hall beside City Hall.
“We still need a stadium that’ll hold enough people,” says Ryerson, “but that’s the only thing stopping us from getting a team. There’s no doubt it would make a go of it.”
According to Ryerson, the Schooners’ party, which features maritime bands and lobster rolls, is different from other teams’ celebrations in a couple of ways.
“Since we’re not really a team, we don’t have to abide by the CFL’s sponsorships. So while the other parties all sell Molson’s, we have Alexander Keith’s.” Additionally, he notes, the other parties are for-profit events, while proceeds from the DownEast Kitchen parties go to the food banks of the Grey Cup host cities.
“Last year we raised $28,000, and we’re hoping to do the same this year.”
The Schooners also have the best motto: “Still undefeated.”
21 cheers for the RedBlacks
It wasn’t until she got to Ottawa’s Macdonald-Cartier Airport for her flight to Winnipeg that RedBlacks cheerleader Cailin (like telemarketers and Cher, they don’t have surnames) realized how excited she was.
Ottawa Redblacks cheer leaders at Gate 22 at Macdonald-Cartier airport.
“It’s a Cinderella story,” she said.
“To have such a comeback story,” added colleague Christine, “has been so much fun.”
And while the cheerleading squads from each CFL team will be performing at Saturday’s Cheer Extravaganza at the University of Winnipeg, only two – Edmonton’s and Ottawa’s – will be on the field for Sunday’s game.
“It’s a game-changer that your team is actually playing as well,” says Amanda, another of the 21-member RedBlacks unit taking part. “That’s a totally different ballgame being able to represent your team at a Grey Cup.”
Co-head cheerleading coaches Kelly McCarney and Olivia Ianni, who train the squad’s stunt performers – the ones who do lifts, flips and the like – expect a different experience Sunday from the ones they see regularly at TD Place.
“There won’t be 26,000 fans cheering for Ottawa,” admits Ianni, “but it’ll be just as much fun and exciting for us.”
As coaches, their job during games is to watch the play on the field and the crowd, and determine when they need to get the latter worked up and screaming their support.
“It’s our job to keep the crowd engaged in the game,” says McCarney. “Plus, we’re entertainment for them.”
They point out that the much-celebrated differences between north- and south-side fans extend to the spectators’ interaction with the cheerleaders.
“The south side is closer, so there’s more intimacy and interaction,” says McCarney, pointing out that fans and cheerleaders on that side high-five after touchdowns, and chant together and take selfies with fans’ phones.
“Because the north side is farther away, there isn’t that interaction,” says Ianni. “And because of the distance and height differences, fans on the south side prefer high flips, while the north side likes stacked pyramids.”
Neither, though, is worried about a hostile crowd on Sunday. “They’re all there to enjoy the experience,” says McCarney.
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“I always teased my brother and sister about it, that they didn’t have the uncles and aunts coming over to our place,” she says.”But then when I was a teenager I realized that, ‘Oh, my god. These aren’t even for me. These are Grey Cup parties with a birthday cake that’s just thrown in there.’”
The realization didn’t chill her love for football however and when she moved to Ottawa to attend university, she continued to follow her beloved Blue Bombers. She bought season’s tickets for the 2006 Renegades season that never happened (“They never really got my heart,” she admits), and last year became a RedBlacks fan, relegating her Bombers to No. 2.
“I didn’t expect it. I thought I would always be a Winnipeg Blue Bombers fan first, but I’ve been in Ottawa for 21 years. I met my husband there, my life is there, my career is there. And now my team is there, and I care deeply about them.”
Ritchot is even a blogger and podcaster on Bleed RedBlacks. And, she note, she’ll turn 40 on Monday. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a Grey Cup for my birthday.”
Despite the RedBlacks’ brief tenure in the league, Ritchot and her husband are attending their ninth consecutive Grey Cup this year, loudly cheering on the RedBlacks.
“Craig and I make a little end-of-November vacation of it. You meet people from all over the country, and then when you come back the next year, it’s like a big reunion.”
At the 2012 Grey Cup in Toronto, for example, she recalls being in Riderville, the party put on by the Saskatchewan Roughriders. (All teams host parties during Grey Cup week. Some, like Regina, host parties every night). “I wanted to dance, but my husband doesn’t like to dance, and he also doesn’t like country music. A song came on and I asked him to dance and he said no. So this guy from Melford, Saskatchewan said, ‘Come on, we’ll go dance.’
“So we took a couple of turns around the dance floor, and came back and finished our beers and kept chit-chatting. And now every year, on the day that they leave Melford, Saskatchewan, getting in their car to drive to the Grey Cup, I get a text from him saying ‘Meet you in Riderville later on?’ And so we see each other every year and have a beer together. It just creates connections.”
This sentiment is echoed by fans of all teams during Grey Cup week. Winnipeg native John “Cooch” Couture has attended almost every Grey Cup since 1971, and even invited 10 “Grey Cuppers” – his term for the people he sees only at Grey Cups – to his wedding.
A fan of the sad-sack Blue Bombers, he says he’ll be cheering for Ottawa on Sunday.
“I love their story,” he says. “That a second-year team could win the Grey Cup is encouraging. I was thinking the Blue Bombers could fold in December and pretend they’re a new franchise, and maybe win in two years.”
Many fans describe the Grey Cup celebrations during the week leading up to the game as Canada’s biggest party, and they may be right. Apart from those arriving from every CFL city, they also arrive from former CFL cities.
“They’ll come here from Shreveport and Baltimore,” said Ron Boily, president of the Winnipeg Pin Collectors Club, from his table inside Winnipeg’s RBC Convention Centre, where many of the team parties take place. The camaraderie among fans is what makes this week unique, he says. Beside him, Scott McLeod displays some of the 1,323 CFL lapel pins in his collection, making it the largest of its kind in the world.
Even Ti-Cats fan Lance Whittaker, who’s still stinging from last weekend’s Eastern Conference final loss to Ottawa (“You guys shouldn’t be here,” he says of the RedBlacks), admits that he won’t be able to maintain his animosity towards Ottawa for much longer.
“It’s a lot of fun,” says the nine-time Grey Cupper. “It’s let-loose time, and it actually brings Canada together. People come from all over the country, they wear their colours, and everybody enjoys each other.”
Brent and Lois Duthie go to the Grey Cup every year.
For Ottawa residents and RedBlacks fans Brent and Lois Duthie, Grey Cup week is their annual trip. A Rough Riders season ticket holder in the 1970s, Brent says he didn’t see as many football games as he would have liked after he got married. “But when the Renegades came to town, my wife called me one day and said, ‘There’s going to be a Grey Cup in Ottawa and you’ve always wanted to go to one. I think you’d be sure to get a Grey Cup ticket if you bought season’s tickets.’
“So I hung up the phone and dialed up the Renegades and got season’s tickets.”
That was in 2004, and the couple hasn’t missed one since. And on two occasions that Vancouver hosted, the couple extended their trip to include a vacation in Hawaii.
“This is really our only trip,” says Brent. “This is how we spend our entertainment dollar. We don’t have a lot to go around, but we have fun with what we do.”
If you build it, the CFL may come
While the RedBlacks will host their team party at Earl’s bar on Saturday afternoon, other franchises throw bigger and longer celebrations, many of them at Winnipeg’s RBC Convention Centre.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders, for example, put on Riderville, a three-night party and the convention centre, with lots of music, line dancing and beer. The Edmonton Eskimos host the perennially popular Spirit of Edmonton party at a hotel closer to the airport.
One of the most popular parties, through, is for a team that not only doesn’t exists, and that never played a game: The Atlantic Schooners DownEast Kitchen Party, also at the RBC Convention Centre.
Halifax was awarded a franchise in 1984, and went about signing players and having uniforms made, and even bought a score clock from the New England Patriots, which is now in storage somewhere. Named the Atlantic Schooners in a fan contest, their logo showed a schooner in a stylized “A,” with four waves underneath representing the Maritime provinces.
But when it came time to play, well, there wasn’t a suitable stadium, and so the team folded.
Today, that non-existent team has, under the auspices of Haligonian John Ryerson and many other volunteers, hosted parties at nine of the last dozen Grey Cups, beginning in 2004 in Ottawa, where it set up camp in the Drill Hall beside City Hall.
“We still need a stadium that’ll hold enough people,” says Ryerson, “but that’s the only thing stopping us from getting a team. There’s no doubt it would make a go of it.”
According to Ryerson, the Schooners’ party, which features maritime bands and lobster rolls, is different from other teams’ celebrations in a couple of ways.
“Since we’re not really a team, we don’t have to abide by the CFL’s sponsorships. So while the other parties all sell Molson’s, we have Alexander Keith’s.” Additionally, he notes, the other parties are for-profit events, while proceeds from the DownEast Kitchen parties go to the food banks of the Grey Cup host cities.
“Last year we raised $28,000, and we’re hoping to do the same this year.”
The Schooners also have the best motto: “Still undefeated.”
21 cheers for the RedBlacks
It wasn’t until she got to Ottawa’s Macdonald-Cartier Airport for her flight to Winnipeg that RedBlacks cheerleader Cailin (like telemarketers and Cher, they don’t have surnames) realized how excited she was.
Ottawa Redblacks cheer leaders at Gate 22 at Macdonald-Cartier airport.
“It’s a Cinderella story,” she said.
“To have such a comeback story,” added colleague Christine, “has been so much fun.”
And while the cheerleading squads from each CFL team will be performing at Saturday’s Cheer Extravaganza at the University of Winnipeg, only two – Edmonton’s and Ottawa’s – will be on the field for Sunday’s game.
“It’s a game-changer that your team is actually playing as well,” says Amanda, another of the 21-member RedBlacks unit taking part. “That’s a totally different ballgame being able to represent your team at a Grey Cup.”
Co-head cheerleading coaches Kelly McCarney and Olivia Ianni, who train the squad’s stunt performers – the ones who do lifts, flips and the like – expect a different experience Sunday from the ones they see regularly at TD Place.
“There won’t be 26,000 fans cheering for Ottawa,” admits Ianni, “but it’ll be just as much fun and exciting for us.”
As coaches, their job during games is to watch the play on the field and the crowd, and determine when they need to get the latter worked up and screaming their support.
“It’s our job to keep the crowd engaged in the game,” says McCarney. “Plus, we’re entertainment for them.”
They point out that the much-celebrated differences between north- and south-side fans extend to the spectators’ interaction with the cheerleaders.
“The south side is closer, so there’s more intimacy and interaction,” says McCarney, pointing out that fans and cheerleaders on that side high-five after touchdowns, and chant together and take selfies with fans’ phones.
“Because the north side is farther away, there isn’t that interaction,” says Ianni. “And because of the distance and height differences, fans on the south side prefer high flips, while the north side likes stacked pyramids.”
Neither, though, is worried about a hostile crowd on Sunday. “They’re all there to enjoy the experience,” says McCarney.
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