Home Opener....Countdown

Home Opener just 4 days away. We kick off our home season against the Calgary Stampeders. Today I was talking with a few colleagues about the significance of a home opener and it took me back to one of my most memorable. 1991 against the Hamilton Tiger Cats. I was an Equipment assistant and I knew that the year ahead would be quite exciting.

There was a tremendous buzz around the "SkyDome" at the time and after a training camp where the Argos made headlines everywhere including south of the border, it could only get better. While the players got a good night sleep, I went to the private party at the Horseshoe Tavern where the "Blues Brothers" gave VIPs a sneak preview to what was coming up the next day.

I went to the party with the other Equipment assistant, Joey, and we walked around the bar looking at all the who's who of the team and their associates. My turned every which way trying to catch a glimpse and perhaps be able to bump into our new owners, specifically, John Candy. I thought to myself how great it would be to be able to chat about the "Great Outdoors" or "Uncle Buck". Most of all I wanted to thank him for bringing back the electricity to the Argos.

The night was young but I had ruled out the fact that I would get to meet him. I began to chat with a nice lady who asked me what i did for the team. When I explained I was one of the locker room helpers, she seemed interested. I told her how excited I was that we had Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky and John Candy as new owners and how it would be amazing to be able to meet them. She then said come with me and head towards none other than John Candy. All I could think was that this lady had a lot of guts to just take us over. When we arrived to see John standing with a drink in his hand chatting with someone in a deep conversation, I was startled to hear this lady interrupt John in his conversation. When she claimed how we worked  with the team and said how we were excited to meet him he turned to face us then put his arm around this lady and asked us who we were. When he found out my nickname was affectionately "Sui" he giggled and said that it was a pleasure to meet us and told us not to hesitate to chat whenever we wanted.

That lady was Rose Candy, John's wife and thanks to Rose I got a chance to meet our new owner and realized that I would have plenty of chances to chat about Uncle Buck or the Great Outdoors because we were now part of the same team.

So the next day amongst all the hype and the performance of the Blues Brothers, I thought to myself how now in front of that 35,000 plus crowd, our owner was getting people excited to be an Argo again.

That was one of my favourite home openers in my 28 years. Hope that Saturday will bring back some of that excitement.