1996 Grey Cup Trip
November 22-25, 1996
"Take off, to the Great White North. Take off, it's a beauty way to go" -- Bob and Doug MacKenzie, with Geddy Lee
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DJL (standing) upholding the memory of the Birmingham Barracudas in the Saskatchewan Hospitality Room. Bill Moeller is at the far left. Note the reduced-price '95 Grey Cup souveniers. Click for 96K GIF. |
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DJL (#8, Reggie Slack), and Dave (#2, Eric Carter) suited up for the cold and ready to walk to the 1996 Grey Cup at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton. Click for 94K GIF. |
DJL and I went to the 1996 Grey Cup, which was on November 24, 1996 in Hamilton, Ontario. The game was between the Toronto Argonauts and the Edmonton Eskimos. However, I'm getting ahead of myself if I start with the game, since that was at the end of our trip, and not the beginning.
We left on Friday morning from my in-laws house in Ashtabula County in NE Ohio. Our goal was to make it to Hamilton in time for the "Calgary Outdoor Breakfast". On the way, one thing I found out is that you can probably get a better exchange rate when transferring your currency than we did. We stopped at our favourite place, the "Travel Information Touristique" place on the QEW in St. Catharines. There we got about $1.295 for our dollars, and I think we could have gotten over $1.30, and probably close to $1.35, at a bank. If you go that way, you might want to stop at Lundy's Lane in Niagara Falls. There are banks there.
Of all the events scheduled for the Grey Cup, I wanted to go to the Calgary Outdoor Breakfast. One reason was because it sounded pretty stupid, and the other reason was because they were giving away free food! The Breakfast was as advertised. People from Calgary were giving away pieces of ham wrapped in a pancake, and DJL and I liked them so much that we went back for thirds. Also for entertainment, a lady from Calgary told some sort of story that I didn't understand, and then the Stampeeder's "Charley Horse" did the macerena on stage. After that, we went around Jackson Square Mall, and then went to Toronto.
Two of DJL's friends were going to be at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and he wanted to meet them there. Bobby Hull (or was it Bobby Orr, I always get those guys mixed up. I like the guy that played for the Flyers. Oh, that was Bobby Clarke?) was there signing autographs, but the real reason DJL's friends were at the Hall of Fame was so that they could look through the reference section, which requires a special appointment. Eventually, DJL and I were looking through the reference material at the Hall of Fame, especially the photographs. I focused on looking up pictures of the Cleveland Barons and Crusaders, and DJL and his friend were looking up photos of old-time greats that I never heard of. One interesting thing that happened was that they were looking at photos of a player who scored the series- winning goal in the Stanley Cup, sometime around 1951. The player died before the next season started (in a plane crash). Just by coincidence, that player's sister was also there, looking for old photos and press clippings.
Because we went to Toronto, we did not go to "Touchdown Manitoba". I don't know what that is, but someone suggested that I should go to it.
After that, we went back to Hamilton, and went to an Indian restaurant. We then checked out the outside activities, including the beer tent, and there didn't seem to be very much going on. We went to the "Saskatchewan Hospitality Room", which was a deserted restaurant in Jackson Square Mall that the people from Saskatchewan rented out for the Grey Cup. That was a better place to hang out. One time DJL couldn't think of the word "Hospitality", so he called it "The Place Where Saskatchewan People Are Nice To You", which is what we called it the rest of the trip.
After hanging out at the Saskatchewan place, DJL really wanted to go bowling. I guess that the default type of bowling in the US is 10-pin, but unless otherwise specified, bowling on Canada is 5-pin. (I don't know where they do 9-pin. Is it New England?) We asked the girl at the Lottery Counter in the mall where we could find a bowling alley, and after a surprised look, she told us where we could find one. We eventually found it, and we went bowling!
5-pin bowling has the pins facing you in a V-shape, and uses a smaller ball without holes. The lanes are the same as for 10-pin, as far as I could tell. After a few gutter-balls, DJL bowled games of about 160 and 130, and I did about 115 and about 90. I have no idea how these scores compare to what experienced 5-pinners do, but I suspect that my scores weren't close!
After that, we went to out hotel that night in Niagara Falls. Interestingly, we went to Niagara Falls, and didn't bother to stop and look at what is, IMHO, one of the 2 natural wonders in eastern North America. (Mammoth Caves is the other.)
That was Friday.
On Saturday, I called rec.sport.football.canadian poster Willy Moeller, and spent the day with him and his friends. One thing that we were considering doing was going to the see the memorial for the Battle of Stoney Creek. This was a battle where Canadian/UK forces turned back the American invaders in the War of 1812. However, we didn't have time for that, and instead we went to the "Grey Cup and Santa Claus" Parade. I must say that I thought it was a fairly boring parade that took far too long. However, on the bright side, I discovered that Canadian parades have a lot of bagpipes. Some of the CFL teams had groups of people in the parade:
We saw fans from Baltimore in the parade, but we didn't see anything for the other former US teams. We wanted to show that the other teams were also missed, so we adopted the Birmingham Barracudas as our own. DJL bought a 'Cudas flag from the Hall of Fame, and we carried it around the rest of the night. The next day, Willy gave us a broomstick, and DJL was able to wave the 'Cudas flag around at the Grey Cup. (Yes, T.J., the Barracudas were there in spirit.)
One other thing we did that day was go to "Rendezvous Regina" at the Armouries. It was another event done by the Saskatchewan people, and they had food, and what seemed to be a military percussion group that was quite interesting, but by this time I was getting tired of standing. I think other shows they had were things like the Ottawa Rough Riders Dance Team.
We stopped by to check out the MuchMusic Dance Party. That was the quietest, emptiest, and most peaceful event that we saw all weekend!
On Saturday night, more stuff was going on outside and at the Beer Tents, but I still liked the atmosphere at the Saskatchewan Hospitality place. One person we met there was the guy who dresses in yellow and black up and leads the Ti-Cats fans at Ivor Wynne in the "Oskee Wee Wee" cheer. I think his name is "Pigskin Pete" or something. I guess that if you are famous, people must buy you drinks, because I must admit that I didn't understand a word he said!
Less Browne is a former football player that is now a Canadian sports commentator. Earlier this year when DJL and I went to the Montreal @ Hamilton game where the Ti-Cats won on a last-second field goal, Less Browne must have known the people sitting in front of us, because he came up and talked to them for quite a while.
We saw a sign at the Sheraton Hotel telling people about "Less Browne's Grey Cup Party". I said, partly to DJL, and partly to myself, "Less Browne, we saw him...", and just as I was saying this, who should walk by but Less Browne? He must have thought that Willy said what I did, because Mr. Browne told Willy, "Oh, you did..." as he was walking by. For a while we were all concerned about me making a fool of ourselves in front of a celebrity.
That night we went to see Star Trek VIII, but that's a story for a different message.
One thing I found that was interesting was the chance to meet some people from Canada, and talk about the other's countries. People I talked to had some misconceptions about the US health care system, and felt that Canada's system was better. They balked when I even suggested that how much a person can afford should perhaps be considered when determining what health care a person should receive. However, one thing I found interesting was that one of the people I met was a nurse, but he had been laid off by the hospital that he worked at because of budget cut-backs. He said that he was sure that he could get a nursing job in 2 weeks in the US, but wanted to stay in Canada. To me, this sound like evidence that there is at least better nursing care in the US.
Guess what language I heard the most besides English. No, it wasn't French or Spanish, but Italian. (Although we did listen to German on a radio station for a while.)
On Saturday night, we stayed in Missasauga, just to be different. On Sunday, we didn't feel like doing much. We could have went to the Grey Cup Warm-up Party, but we didn't really feel like standing around in the cold for another day, so we just hung out at Centre Mall. About this time it started snowing. By the time we made our way to the stadium, where we were supposed to meet Willy, and his friends, there was a huge crowd, and it was getting close to game time, so we didn't meet them on Sunday.
It was still snowing at the game time, and I think I was better prepared for the cold than DJL was. I won't give details of the game here, but it was an excellent game. At every time-out, people came out and shovelled the yardlines and sidelines, and I think the weather was a factor in making it a high-scoring game. At halftime, the concourse of the stadium was packed, and we walked from end to end to get warmed up.
After the game, yep, it was still snowing. Really, though, there wasn't a whole lot of snow on the ground, only a few inches. I don't know if this was because it melted because of the warm ground, or just because it was that type of snow, but it could have been much worse.
However, driving back was not fast. For a while, we were doing maybe 35 (MPH) on the QEW. Sometime in Pennsylvania, the snow turned into rain. We had to go somewhat out of the way to pick up my car at Dorset. We left Hamilton at a little after 10:30 PM, and I got back to Columbus at a little before 7:00 AM. So, it should have been quicker, but it took maybe 8 hours and 15 minutes to get back.
I told myself that I would sleep until I woke up and then go to work. For some reason I only slept for about 2 hours, and so I was at work by 11:30. I'm not sure why, but I did have work to do, and despite my bloodshot eyes, I was able to get work done.
DJL was gung-ho about going to the 1997 Grey Cup in Montreal. I'd like to go, too, but I think I'd like to wait for a while before deciding. I figure that maybe I should take my wife on a vacation somewhere, and she is not much of a Canadian Football fan.
