A lucky bunch will get to play in new stadium

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/04/2010 (5650 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’m not going to lie. My first reaction to the announcement that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers would finally get their new stadium in 2012 was, "Dammit! Two years too late!"

But that’s just selfish of me. You see, my current contract expires after the 2011 season, which will put me at 37 years of age and probably $#&* out of luck when it comes to an opportunity to play in the much-anticipated brand-spankin’-new ballpark. But this is obviously a much bigger deal than any of our individual dreams and desires.

And that’s just it. For a player, a new stadium is right up there with the most exciting things you can experience as a professional athlete — right after cashing your first signing bonus and dating your first cheerleader (kidding) — mainly because new stadiums only come along once every half-century or so.

I have never played in a brand-new stadium before or been the first man to step into a new facility, but I came pretty close once back in the day. The Washington Redskins left RFK Stadium after 36 years of use to move to Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (which is now called Fed Ex Field) in 1997. I signed with the team in 1998 and got my first look at what was then a state-of-the-art facility.

As a player, the first thing you notice about a new stadium is obviously how incredibly clean and organized it seems. There are no signs of wear, weather damage, leaks, or crumbling concrete to be found. It is a seamless, high-tech, erector set in pristine condition, but also completely void of personality, tradition or history.

For that is what gives a stadium its feeling — what you do in it and what you bring to it. For the last 10 seasons Canad Inns Stadium has been the home for a lot of great players, a lot of great victories and many heartfelt defeats.

I still remember my first game in it, a pre-season win against the Toronto Argonauts with Kerwin Bell at the helm, on a surface that looked and felt a lot like the felt off a pool table with needles in it as teeth.

It was the first place in which I had ever been on the field in a professional game where the fans were allowed to come flooding onto it after the contest and celebrate shoulder to shoulder with the players.

It was also the only place I ever played where the lights went out and the power was lost before a game against the Stampeders that ended up launching them into the playoffs and us ultimately out of the championship game.

From my perspective, Canad Inns will always be the place where many a great goal-line stand held strong, where it was always tough to run, and where many players from my era, like Milt and Blink and Khari ran free, and more often than not, had their way with the opposition.

It’s the place where we can hide in the dugouts when the weather turns ugly during practice and watch the fans in the east side throw their beer cups at each other while heckling the players on the opposition bench during games.

Forty-five or so very lucky players are going to be the first ones to walk on the new surface and donate their blood and time to the field. They are going to set up shop in the new neighbourhood that will be the locker-room and wonder how long that stall will be theirs.

Most importantly, no matter what the Bombers accomplish over the next two years, that group of players will get to begin a new era of Blue and Gold football that is not just a new chapter, but a new book. They will set the tone for whether that house will be a holiday destination for other CFL teams or a trip to an asylum filled with rabid metal-heads and punishing Winnipeg football in an intimate environment. They will be the ones that put a face on this nameless concrete and steel structure, and be the punctuation mark for the pride of a province showing off its wares.

They are oh so lucky, and they better make sure they win that first game.