Hamilton awarded 2023 Grey Cup, too

City will host second championship in two years due to the pandemic upending many of the plans made for this December’s showcase

If you were going to come up with one word to describe the CFL’s decision to award Hamilton another Grey Cup game — this one in 2023, just two years after it hosts this season’s championship — you might come up with “surprising.” That could work.

Or you might try “deserving.” For fans who’ve patiently watched the annual celebration of Canadian football travel from coast to coast for the past 25 years as it stopped everywhere but here, that would apply. You could even go with “overdue,” “warranted’ or ‘appropriate.” But let’s go with ‘fair.’

“Fair is a great word,” says CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie.

Waiting a quarter century for a Grey Cup game to come to town only to see it finally arrive during COVID-19 almost sounds like a cruel cosmic joke. So the CFL’s decision to award the ’23 game to Hamilton as something of a pre-emptive make-good is a dose of fairness properly applied.

Here’s why this is so warranted.

The Grey Cup isn’t just a game. It’s also a weeklong festival and travelling national party. It’s a tourist draw for people from around the country. It’s an economic jolt. And it’s an advertisement for the host city.

For organizers however, it’s a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. In normal years, putting it all together takes time. But when the pandemic-related science is continually getting updated, which leads to the rules being constantly changed and the policies being regularly modified, you’re suddenly building that same puzzle except the table on which it’s being assembled keeps getting tipped over.

The Tiger-Cats president and COO calls it a constantly moving environment.

“There’s frankly been not one single element of our plan for a Grey Cup that hasn’t been impacted by the pandemic,” Matt Afinec says.

The planned stadium expansion to 40,000 seats or so? Nope. It’ll remain as is at 24,000. School kids coming to the festival? Can’t do that. A concert series? Not this time. Large-scale fan gatherings? Sorry. Even the things that can still be done to some degree have been thrown into a blender over the past months.

The irony is that many of the most-ambitious plans the team was planning and has had to adjust were the very things that convinced the league to give Hamilton the 2021 game in the first place.

Which brings us to Thursday’s announcement and that word “fair” again. It only seems fair to give the city and the team another crack at this when the pandemic is gone — touch wood that it is, by then — so the vision that was presented in the first place can be realized.

“Our fans deserve this,” Afinec says. “Our fans have waited a long time.”

Uh, yeah. The Spice Girls’ debut album had just hit the shelves and Kobe Bryant had just played his first NBA game the last time it was here in case you needed a reminder of how long 25 years really is.

Not to mention the fact that the game has been in every other CFL city at least twice since that snowy November day in 1996.

Of course, this announcement creates a bit of a balancing act.

How do you sell a “modified” — that’s the league’s word — 2021 game (tickets go on sale Oct. 26, fans must be fully vaccinated) when the full-fledged 2023 event is waiting?

Both men are quick to point out that this year’s game on the field will be like any other Grey Cup and all the pageantry will still be there. Same with pregame entertainment and a full halftime show. Afinec says adjustments don’t mean nothing will be happening. Plus, things will occur “organically” around town.

Beyond that, what ’23 will have in grand-scale events, December’s game will have in meaning and emotion and patriotism, the commissioner says.

“I believe it’s going to be symbolic of the battle we’ve all been through together,” Ambrosie says.

“I think it’s going to be a national celebration.”

It could be a unique moment. Then we’ll do it all over again 24 months later with the full show.

All things considered, that seems fair.