Regina gets the 2020 Grey Cup

The CFL has decided to stage another celebration in Rider Nation.

CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie announced Thursday that the 2020 Grey Cup game is to be played in Regina. The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ bid to play host to the game was selected over bids put forward by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes.

“I’m just pleased and honoured to announce that Grey Cup 2020 has been awarded to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the city of Regina and the province of Saskatchewan,” Ambrosie said while making the announcement on TSN.

It will be the fourth time that the Queen City has staged the CFL’s championship game and its accompanying festivities, joining the Grey Cups of 1995, 2003 and 2013. But those games were played on Taylor Field; the 2020 contest will be the first to be staged at new Mosaic Stadium.

“One of our themes with the bid was, ‘We’re ready,’ ” Roughriders president-CEO Craig Reynolds said on The Green Zone with Jamie Nye. “We consciously didn’t want to put a bid forward until we were ready with the stadium and we had all the kinks out. I think we have that now.”

The building, which opened prior to the 2017 CFL season, will be the focal point for football-related events during Grey Cup Week. But the stadium’s location at Evraz Place was one of the attractions of Regina’s bid.

That facility will be the site of all of the week’s events, including the nightly parties staged by the league’s teams. Banquet rooms, an indoor soccer facility and various hockey rinks on the site will play host to events, and the Brandt Centre is a potential location for concerts.

And the announcement…. pic.twitter.com/fy4FrwgVFH

— Lisa Schick (@LMSchickler) February 22, 2019

“We’re going to have every event, every team party, every concert, the street festival — all on the Evraz Place site,” Reynolds told Nye.

“We’re going to put on a fabulous show and I’m certain we’re going to raise the bar,” Mayor Michael Fougere added during a celebratory event at Mosaic Stadium. “I don’t have any doubt about that at all.”

The Roughriders were eager to land hosting rights for the 2020 Grey Cup because that year will mark the 110th anniversary of the franchise.

“Had they been in any room anywhere in the world delivering their pitch, I think they would have been awarded anything that they would have wanted in that moment because it was that good,” Ambrosie told Nye.

Hamilton was hoping to be the site of a Grey Cup game for the first time since 1996. The Tiger-Cats moved into Tim Hortons Field during the 2014 season, but the league has yet to hold its title game in that stadium.

That will change in 2021. Shortly after announcing that Regina is getting the 2020 game, Ambrosie revealed that Hamilton had been awarded the 2021 Grey Cup game.

The last time Montreal served as the Grey Cup’s host city was 2008. The Alouettes play their home games in Percival Molson Stadium, but the CFL’s season-ending contest would have been played in Olympic Stadium.

In 1995, a crowd of 52,564 packed into an expanded Mosaic Stadium to watch the Baltimore Stallions defeat the Calgary Stampeders 37-20 in the Grey Cup game. It was the first and last time that an American-based team won the CFL title.

In 2003, the Edmonton Eskimos downed Montreal 34-22 in front of 50,909 patrons at historic Mosaic Stadium, which had been expanded for the occasion.

In 2013, the Roughriders recorded a franchise first when they won a Grey Cup at home for the first time. A gathering of 44,710 watched Saskatchewan beat Hamilton 45-23 on Taylor Field.

Roughriders defensive tackle Zack Evans, who hails from Regina, attended the Grey Cup games in 1995 and 2003. He was part of the Saskatchewan team that claimed the title on its home field in 2013.

“Winning a Grey Cup at home with your home team (in) your hometown, everything just worked perfectly,” Evans said during an event at the Canadian Brewhouse. “We had the perfect team that year. It was amazing.”

The 2020 Grey Cup contest will be the third straight CFL title game played in Western Canada. Edmonton was the site of the 2018 championship game and the 2019 contest is to be played in Calgary.

With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick and Andrew Shepherd.