Marianne, Martha and the Grey Cup spirit

This is a story about how the CFL has a way of bringing Canadians together, truly together, in a way few other things can.

It was 90 minutes before kickoff at the 112th Grey Cup. Outside the Kenaston-area hotel, two women stood waiting for a cab, which took a long time to come. I’d arrived there to find I’d missed the latest shuttle to Princess Auto Stadium, and I was in a state of panic. I turned to the women, who were clearly decked out in football gear.

If you’re going to the game, I pleaded, can I hop in your cab? I don’t have any cash to help with the fare.

“Of course,” the two women replied, their voices warm with Grey Cup spirit. “Come with us!”

That’s how I met Marianne and Martha, longtime football fans who’d flown in from Victoria, B.C. Although Sunday night was relatively mild for mid-November in Winnipeg, their West Coast acclimatization found the prairie chill challenging; they laughed as they showed off the many layers of warm clothing they’d piled on for the event.

Over these layers, Marianne wore a B.C. Lions hat, from her beloved home-province team, and a green Saskatchewan jersey — that one because she’d lost a bet, she explained. Besides, if her Lions aren’t competing for the Cup, she likes to support the Western Canadian squad.

As the cab headed to the stadium, the pair asked me about Winnipeg. They’d planned an extra two days here to explore the city; they’d already been to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which they thought was brilliant, and were hoping to see other top local sights, including the Royal Canadian Mint and city hall.

Winnipeg’s city hall is a beautiful modernist building, I assured them, and worth a visit if one enjoys such things. Marianne thanked me for the tourism advice; she handed me her business card, which I quickly tucked into my pocket, and invited me to say hello if I was ever in Victoria.

The cab pulled to a halt in front of the stadium. The smell of BBQ drifted from the tailgate parties which were already in full swing. Fans streamed down the sidewalks, laughing, full of anticipation. My heart was full, thinking of the two women I met in the cab: it’s not often that Winnipeg gets to meet so many visitors at once, and show them our heart.

This is the kind of thing we do best, you know. The welcome, the party. The coming together, to make guests feel at home. And from the time the Grey Cup first arrived in the city, to the moment green-and-white confetti blossomed over the field Sunday night, many of those those visitors praised Winnipeg’s fifth turn as Grey Cup host.

Just after halftime on Sunday night, iconic Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan crew The Box J Boys were mingling on the concourse, tossing back beverages with friends new and old. Their yellow hard-hats and bright yellow-and-black kilts stood out in the wild patchwork of Grey Cup outfits.

“This has been the absolute best Grey Cup party,” said Box J Boy Franco Fortino, who has been to 15 Grey Cups, including two others in Winnipeg. “The people here are fantastic. They go out of their way to bring in all the different provinces from all over Canada. It’s been so welcoming.”

Fortino’s voice caught in his throat. He paused for a moment, visibly moved by the thought.

“Actually, I’m kind of teary thinking about leaving tomorrow,” he added. “I don’t want to leave, I want to stay. The CFL is a family.”

That’s the word you hear most around the Grey Cup: family. It shows. In the stadium, tens of thousands of fans came from all over; but though they cheered for different teams and wore many different colours — mostly Riders green and Bombers blue-and-gold — they still laughed and clinked drinks over their vast common ground.

And when the game clock hit zero, and the Roughriders had won their first Grey Cup since 2013, even Bombers fans high-fived and hugged the Riders fans beside them, setting aside the CFL’s fiercest rivalry because joy is infectious. That’s what makes the CFL’s grassroots culture so unique: everyone belongs equally, just for wanting to be there.

I thought again about how, even though I had no cash to offer, those two women from British Columbia welcomed me into their cab without hesitation, and the joy they had shown in learning more about Winnipeg. It was a moment that captured how a game is just an excuse, to bring people together — though there is a slight twist to that story.

After the cab dropped us off at Princess Auto Stadium, I walked the two women to the gate, thanking them for the ride and the lovely conversation. I wished them a wonderful rest of their visit, grateful for their interest in our city and hoping they’d see its tenacious spirit, so often maligned and misunderstood, but so full of character.

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They bid me a warm goodbye, and wished me luck on the night’s writing.

“And if you need an angle for your story, take a closer look at that business card,” Marianne said, with a wink.

With that, Marianne Alto, the mayor of Victoria, disappeared into the crowd streaming into the stadium, merging into the sea of fans that had converged here from Montreal and Calgary, Halifax and Hamilton, big-town Toronto and small-town Saskatchewan.

People of all backgrounds, all stories, all different parts of a vast country. United for one night by a love not just for any one team, but for our game, our league, and a distinctly Canadian spirit.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.