Well that was awesome and I was glad I was able to be at Ivor Wynne Stadium for the Ticats victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers last night. Over the past several years, going to Ivor Wynne has often ended up being a bitter experience. Losing a close one is always disappointing, but the worst is when the Cats get blown out early and you're stuck watching the rest of the game with the team having no realistic chance to win. In last night's game, it was close for quite a while, but one had the sense that the Cats had the upper hand (although admittedly I was pretty sure Stefan LeFors was a crappy quarterback with a really low completion percentage). I made sure to stay right to the end too.
It was also great to see a crowd of over 24,000 at the game and everyone getting into it. Certainly centre Marwan Hage's City Kidz program to get kids to Ivor Wynne bumped up the total, but I have no problem with this compared to other papering that devalues the value of the game ticket. It is not like poor kids are going to be able to go to a game themselves or sell their tickets to a scalper. Plus having kids in the stadium brings a certain energy and element of fun and helps build lifelong fans. To me Bulldogs games are a bit of a chore to go to because they pander almost too much to families (and I don't blame them, that's their market), but the Cats get the right mix. Interesting too, since I sit in section 5, that the kids were in sections 5 and 9 of the North side stands. Looking across to the South side, there was certainly some sparseness, however looking around my area from seat, it was jammed. I wonder if the Cats prefer to have the North side packed because the TV cameras are more likely to focus on them in background shots. There seems to be a real discrepancy this year.
The Ticat retro uniforms were enjoyable, and I wouldn't mind having one to mix up game day attire. I thought the cheerleaders retro outfits were a nice and also a professional touch. Winnipeg's retro jerseys I wasn't quite as sold on. Watching parts of the Montreal game, I actually kind of liked the Alouettes all red retro uniforms and also head coach Marc Trestman had a sweater with some kind of retro looking lark design on it that was strange looking, but weirdly compelling.
Tomorrow I will look at the stats and make some more comments about the actual game, as I'm still celebrating. As I mentioned in some previous blog posts, it has been a while since the Cats were over 500 or even won two in a row.
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