Winnipeg Blue Bombers Game Day

10 GREY CUP PLAYBOOK SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2015 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS GREY CUP MEMORIES RIDING THE RAILS The Grey Cup trophy has received a warm welcome in Manitoba. Since June, the Cup has made dozens of appearances across the province, travelling with the Manitoba Hydro Smart Community Caravan to communities throughout southern Manitoba — and even boarding a VIA Rail train for a 1,700-kilometre tour to northern Manitoba. Accompanied by an entourage that included Winnipeg Blue Bomber Hall of Famer Doug Brown, the Cup rode the rails to 11 northern communities, including Churchill, where it took a polar bear tour on a Frontiers North Adventures Tundra Buggy. [ Photo courtesy of Frontiers North Adventures A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Sportswriters tell Grey Cup tales out of school By Judy Owen for the Winnipeg Free Press NO GREY CUP COVERAGE IS COMPLETE WITHOUT A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE. BUT INSTEAD OF KEYING ON GAME HIGHLIGHTS, SOME OF CANADA'S MOST-VETERAN SPORTS REPORTERS OFFER UP THEIR FAVOURITE MEMORIES – FROM A DECADENT MEDIA PARTY AND PILFERED ARTWORK TO THE TRICKERY OF LEGENDARY QUARTERBACK DOUG FLUTIE. BOB IRVING Bombers sports reporter, CJOB radio Is covering his 43rd consecutive Grey Cup ondly known as "Knuckles" because of his fear of flying, Irving is the long-time radio voice of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. He retired as CJOB's sports director last year, but got a sweet deal with the station to continue his play-by-play job part-time and keep collecting memories of the league he loves. Getting together with his media colleagues ranks up there with his fond memories, especially a party at the 2007 Grey Cup in Toronto. Former Toronto Argonauts co-owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski welcomed the media at Cynamon's mansion, the year after David Asper had feted the fourth estate at his Winnipeg Wellington Crescent mansion. There the similarities ended. "They had live entertainment, they had partially clad women lying on a table covered in chocolates and stuff," Irving says with a laugh. "It was the kind of thing we'd never seen. It was a media party. It wasn't a party for anybody else. It was just totally over the top. It must have cost them 100 grand to put it on." As much as members of the media consider each other friendly foes, that wasn't the case at a Grey Cup in the 1970s or '80s. Writers and broadcasters had gathered in the Football Reporters of Canada suite in the media hotel, a popular location to tip back a few cold ones after covering that day's team practices or events. On this night, long-time CTV sports broadcaster Pat Marsden got into an argument with former Bomber quarterback great Ken Ploen, who was doing some media coverage of the Cup. "I can't even remember what they were arguing about," Irving says. "I was a young reporter and I just kind of stood off to the side and watched these things. "They went at it for probably 10 or 15 minutes, just yelling at each other about something. And (the late) Marsden was stubborn and loud to begin with. But he said something that got Kenny all riled up. "I'll never forget that one. Here's these two legends, one a legend of the media and the other a hall-of-fame player. But at the end of it all, they kind of laughed and shook hands and that was the end of it." Chances are the free-flowing libations played a role in the confrontation, which would fit with the theme of Grey Cup being known as the "Grand National Drunk." Irving found that out at the first Cup he covered in 1973. "I'd heard all these stories about the shenanigans that went on in the hotels and about them removing the furniture from the hotel lobbies," he says. "It was hard to believe that actually took place, but it did. We were staying at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto and I think it was two days before the game, but they took all the furniture out of the lobby. "And then Calgary brought their horse and rode it through the lobby, which is one of the reasons they did it. But I guess the other reason was because people were so unruly. "It was one of the things that stuck out in my mind. Man, they actually do this. And that was my introduction to Grey Cup games, and sort of the party – the Grand National Drunk that it was called." DAN RALPH Sports reporter, The Canadian Press Is covering his 23rd Grey Cup he Toronto-based sportswriter, who covers the CFL for the national wire service, always enjoys the anything-can-happen aspect of the three-down game. The surprises off the field are a bonus. Take, for instance, his first Grey Cup back in 1981, when he was just a journalism student at Durham College in Ontario. He was fortunate to cover the entire week leading up to the game in Montreal between Ottawa and Edmonton. While sitting in the stands at McGill Stadium after the Eskimos' practice and awaiting Ottawa's practice, reporters got to see how the Edmonton players really worked together. "The Eskimos got on the team bus and they were trying to go up the hill and they couldn't because the road was so icy," Ralph recalls. "So the players had to get out and push the bus up the hill. You could hear the bus's tires spinning. "And Brian Williams was there at the time for CBC and he was getting all excited because he had a camera guy there. He told the camera guy, 'Forget practice. Get out there and get (footage) of the bus.' " Ralph was part of a tradition invented by Edmonton- based journalist Terry Jones on the night the league hands out its player of the year awards. While the event was going on, reporters were sequestered in a nearby room and had an embargoed list of the winners and TVs to watch the speeches. To pass the time, Jones started a secret pool. Each reporter would toss in some money and put in their guesses about whom the winners would thank first. The choices were God, mother, teammates, coaches, family and media (which was never first!) The backroom gambling remained hush hush until 1996, when Doug Flutie called a new play. The previous year, the star pivot wasn't up for an award because he'd been injured that season. However, he was at the show and went backstage and found out about the pool. He hung on to the discovery until the '96 event. As reporters were watching the speeches, they were floored when players began thanking obscure people such as their strength coach or second cousin, Ralph recalls. "We're all looking, going, 'What the hell?' " Flutie then got up to accept another of his most outstanding player awards and first thanked the media, and then spilled the beans about the pool. Guess you could say he didn't only pick apart defences. ED TAIT Sports reporter, Winnipeg Free Press Is covering his 26th Grey Cup ait's inaugural Grey Cup was his first on the football beat in 1990, coincidentally the last time the Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the championship title in a match against Edmonton. While he was walking through the hotel lobby in Vancouver a few days before the game, Bomber linebackers Tyrone Jones and James West pulled aside the young scribe for a one-on-one "press conference." "I don't know if they'd been drinking or what, but they proceeded to rattle off their CFL all-ugly team," Tait recalls. "I know it had Ray Elgaard at slotback and Tracy Ham at quarterback and I can't remember the other guys. Can you imagine in this day and age somebody doing that? Wow, that would be all over everything." He wishes he'd been covering one particular Grey Cup in the late 1950s or early '60s. As the tale goes, the Football Reporters of Canada held its annual breakfast on the day of the game and then-league commissioner Sydney Halter had the 'honour' of giving a speech to the "hungover" members. "As he's talking, the collection of media there thinks, 'Oh my god, we should have a gift or something for this guy.' " The late, great Winnipeg broadcaster "Cactus" Jack Wells then disappeared for a bit and came back into the room with a gigantic painting he'd taken off a wall in the hotel lobby. "They give the commissioner this painting," Tait says. "And then I guess later on in the day when he goes to check out, the security guy comes up to the commissioner and says, 'Excuse me, what are you doing with this painting, it's been missing for most of the day?' "Those are the kind of stories I love about the league." [ ED TAIT DAN RALPH BOB IRVING Bob Irving photo courtesy of Corus Radio Winnipeg, Dan Ralph CP Photo, Ed Tait photo by Ruth Bonneville.

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