Edmonton Eskimos

The first regular season game of the 2019 Canadian Football League season for the Edmonton Eskimos was on Friday June 14th.  The team has changed a lot from last year.  Last year the team finished with a .500 record but didn't make the playoffs.   They didn't have the opportunity to win their way in to the Grey Cup, which we hosted here at Commonwealth Stadium.  It was painful to go to that game last fall and watch Calgary win the championship.  Then our franchise quarterback left in free agency, along with a bunch of other players.  We have a new quarterback, Trevor Harris, formerly of the Ottawa Redblacks, a whole bunch of new players, and a new defensive co-ordinator.  I'm optimistic that the team will do better this year.

It was the usual drill... Hailey was working, and Margarit had to drive her.  The other two girls didn't feel like going, so I went by myself.  It's a pretty comfortable environment as we have had our season seats for about four years now, and most the regulars around us are season seat holders as well.  It often is real party environment.

This particular game was kind of laid back and slow paced.  Or maybe it was me just not getting into it at the beginning, after a long week at work and fighting a bad cold.  Our Edmonton Eskimos were playing the Montreal Alouettes.  Montreal has struggled the last several years with the ownership turning the team over to league control for this season.  The head coach was fired just before this game, and the assistant coach took over.  They finished in last place in 2018 and the expectation was that Edmonton should have an easy victory.  We won the game, but it wasn't easy and Montreal put together a drive that saw them tie the game 25-25 with just over two minutes remaining.  The Eskimos rallied and marched the ball down the field to score the winning touchdown for a 32-25 victory, with only seconds left.

Tom Cochrane played the half time show and belted out three of his biggest hits.  Like all of us, he is getting older and I was a little surprised at how he's aged.  I know it has been quite a while since I've seen him.  He started out playing his first song with a Takamine acoustic guitar just like mine, before switching to a hollow body electric after that.  Late in the game one of the team mascots, Nanook, came up into our section.  He was hamming it up with all the fans and for a while sat down right beside me.