On July 11th I bought tickets to the Canadian Football League game here in Edmonton, at Commonwealth Stadium. The game was between our hometown Edmonton Eskimos and the new Ottawa Redblacks. Ottawa has a long history in the CFL, but at least two of their previous teams folded. Back when I was a kid there was the old Ottawa Rough Riders. I always found it odd that back in the day, when there were only NINE teams in the league, two of them chose to be called the Rough Riders. This was the Ottawa team, and the Saskatchewan team that played in Regina. The Ottawa team folded and years later eventually came back as the Ottawa Renegades... the inspiration for the name of my men's league hockey team. But, the football Renegades also folded after a few seasons and then this year resurrected themselves as the Redblacks.
Hailey and Julia came with me to the game, and it was a beautiful summer evening. We really enjoyed the game, which the Eskimos won by a score of 27-11. I really got into the game and cheered and yelled until I just about lost my voice. I took a few snapshots at the game with my phone and have posted them here.
We later learned that the 50/50 raffle jackpot of over $70,000 was not claimed. It was added to the pool for the next home game, which was on July 24. This created a huge buying frenzy for the enthisiastic crowd that showed up, and the jackpot grew to nearly $350,000. It was won by a local young guy. Unfortunately the Eskimos lost that game, against Calgary.
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