LUCKY COIN? Redblacks hope silver dollar brings them a 2020 season and another Grey Cup
Another Grey Cup title would be nice, but so would confirmation that there will be a 2020 CFL season despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article content
Maybe the silver coin that will sit underneath the new turf at the TD Place stadium can provide some luck and help make a Canadian Football League season happen in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, the Redblacks held a ceremony to bury a 2016 silver dollar in the sub-surface of the field, hoping to channel the Grey Cup karma of the 2016 championship team for future editions of the club. The idea goes back to 2014, when a 1976 silver dollar was put underneath the turf, with a nod to the 1976 Rough Riders, the last previous Ottawa team to win a Grey Cup title.
So about that CFL season, which has been pushed back to September, if it happens at all. Asked if he was optimistic CFL teams would play in 2020, Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group executive chairman and managing partner Roger Greenberg said: “I’d say it’s 50-50. We’re into a very tight time frame. I don’t think the governments will allow us to play in front of fans, and, unfortunately, we’re a gate-driven league. It’s not like the NHL or the NFL or even Major League Baseball, where they get tons of money from TV. We don’t. There’s an ask into the federal government, there’s an ask of the CFL Players’ Association, as well as all the teams, to contribute so we can play.
“(The financial losses) will be substantial. We know we’re going to lose money, the question is which way can we do it that works best for everybody that loses us the least amount. We’re a budget league. We have to remember that and live within our means.
“As an owner I can tell you, we 100 per cent want to be playing in 2020. It’ll be fan-less stadiums, which sucks, but it’s better to be seeing it than not at all.”
The bottom line for Greenberg and the OSEG ownership group has never been all about the bottom line. The franchise has lost money while trying to do things the right way. Greenberg grew up as a Rough Riders fan, sitting in the upper deck of the south side on the 35-yard line with his dad. He was also in Toronto for the 1976 Grey Cup win.
“One of the first questions I was asked when we applied for the CFL franchise back in 2007, 2008: ‘Why are you doing this?'” Greenberg said. “My answer was, ‘To create memories.’ This isn’t to make money. We’re losing a lot. This is to help create memories for the young kids. It’s not just that we’re missing the football — that’s a big part — but I miss that the players and coaches aren’t here and we can’t do the things we do out in the community.”
If the coin can’t save the season, maybe it at least provides good karma.
“This (silver coin) worked the first time around,” Greenberg said. “Two years later, we’re in the Grey Cup. If not for a hit on (quarterback) Henry (Burris’s) arm, we may have won that (2015) Grey Cup. Then the next year, we won it. You can’t go wrong with good luck. I’ve spoken to Marie (Lemay, president and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint), and she’s promised me it’s a good-luck coin and she didn’t say when, but she did say it would bring us a Grey Cup.”
The original idea came from fan Scott Bradley, who sent Jeff Hunt, then OSEG’s president of sports, a silver coin long before the Redblacks played their first game in 2014.
“I found the 1976 silver dollar in a drawer and it instantly brought back memories of that tremendous Ottawa Grey Cup victory,” Bradley said at the time. “Then I thought about the Lucky Loonie that was frozen into the ice to bring luck to the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey teams at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and wondered if we could do something similar for the Redblacks.”
It seems highly unlikely there will be any football at TD Place in 2020. If there is a CFL season, it would probably be played in a hub city, perhaps Winnipeg, but the Redblacks will take any karma they can get.
“I hope it doesn’t take us two years (to win another Grey Cup), I hope it’s right now,” said defensive back Antoine Pruneau, a member of the Cup-winning team in 2016. “It’s not the coin that’ll make the difference, it’s the work we’ll have to put in. I think it’s a good thing to look back at our football history and remember where this all came from.”
The original field turf has been removed and will be replaced with FieldTurf Core, a multi-layer surface engineered to provide a more grass-like feel. Work should be completed by next month.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.