City throws quite a party

JOHN WOODS / POSTMEDIA NEWS Enlarge Image

Winnipeg Blue Bombers fans are pumped as they enter BC Place for the Grey Cup game.

VANCOUVER -- All the orange fright wigs and crazy lion masks have been placed back in drawers reserved for semi-useless household knicknacks.

All the empty pizza boxes and plastic beer cups have been wrapped in bags and shipped off to the Vancouver landfill in suburban Delta, B.C.

For the first time in five days, few tourists on the east side of downtown Vancouver are parading around in Canadian Football League jerseys. But some of the jubilant locals are still clad in the garish orange garb of the B.C. Lions, who beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sunday night.

The 99th Grey Cup is over, leaving behind elation on the Lower Mainland, melancholy across Manitoba and an unknown number of hangovers in hotel rooms in the blocks surrounding BC Place.

Here's how the weekend went down, on and off the football field:

The good

No rioting

After enduring a Stanley Cup riot this June, a previous hockey riot in 1994 and even a Grey Cup riot in 1963, Vancouverites were in no mood for another stain upon their reputation.

True to the promises of police and Grey Cup organizers, there was little misbehaviour outside BC Place following the Lions' 34-23 victory over a Bombers squad the hometown team was expected to beat.

Did the Vancouver Police Department learn from the mistakes it insists it did not make back in June? Or are happy fans less likely to destroy property than the jilted and disappointed?

Either way, none of the 45,834 Starbucks locations on Robson Street suffered as a much as a window scratch.

Real atmosphere

Everywhere you went in downtown Vancouver, from Friday until Sunday, you were reminded of the presence of the Canadian Football League's annual championship and festival.

Fans of the five teams in Western Canada -- Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton fans, by and large, did not make the trip -- wore their jerseys in the streets. Bars and restaurants sported Grey Cup banners and lineups, to boot.

Compared to the 2007 Grey Cup in Toronto, the only major Canadian city that seems ambivalent about Canadian football, Vancouver seemed to revel in its role as host city.

Sure, the presence of the hometown team in the big game played a role in this enthusiasm. But there was no sense urbane Vancouver was too cool to get excited about a game.

The Manitoba diaspora

Go to any major city in North America and you'll find ex-Manitobans, but nowhere quite as visibly as in Vancouver, where so many former flatlanders reside.

As per usual, Bomber fans held their Touchdown Manitoba social as part of the Grey Cup festivities. But there were long lineups outside Blue & Gold House, the temporary name ex-Winnipeg bar manager Phil Osztian conferred on the Elephant & Castle pub on Burrard Street.

And in a fluke of fortuitous timing, there was also a Saturday-night gig by ex-Winnipeg rock band The Watchmen, who played to a mix of Winnipeggers and former Manitobans at The Commodore on Granville Street.

While the former Winnipeggers in the band reside in Toronto, they remain proud members of the diaspora. Guitarist Joe Serlin plays on Toronto rec-league hockey team the Wheatfield Souldiers, comprised of ex-Winnipeggers, while singer Daniel Greaves is starting to cater to ex-Winnipeggers at Motel, the bar he recently purchased on Queen Street West.

"We're showing the Jets games," he said, noting he doesn't need many of the 50,000 or so ex-Manitobans living in Toronto to sell out his venue. "We only have room for 30."

The bad

The drought continues

OK, so the Bombers lost. Many Winnipeg fans expected the result, but that did not erase the sting of watching the Lions stifle the Blue offence for all but the dwindling moments of the Grey Cup.

It's now 21 years since the last Cup victory and the streak may very well continue next year. Only the club's strong turnaround on the field in 2011 erases the sting.

The $563-million non-miracle

After shelling out more than half a billion dollars over three years to renovate BC Place, you'd think the new retractable roof would be free of leaks. More importantly, you would think it would open on a sunny, 8 C Grey Cup Sunday.

The ugly

Mosca vs. Kapp

Based on eyewitness accounts, the Friday dust-up between 73-year-old ex-CFL greats Angelo Mosca and Joe Kapp at an alumni luncheon may have been the most remarkable athletic event of the Grey Cup weekend.

The two have been at odds since they played against each other in the 1963 Grey Cup. Here's to old men, old grudges and a nearly century-old contest.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 29, 2011 A2