THE scriptwriters
keep getting it wrong.

Last year’s western final
was the one in which the
Lions were supposed te beat
the Stampeders. Home field,
Grey Cup host city and a
fall house for the grand
national championship.

This vear’s western final
was the one in which

Calgary was supposed to do itto B.C. For
the same reason. Home field, host city for
the cup and an automatic sellout this com-
ing Sunday.

So the Stamps messed up in even more
spectacular fashion than the Lions did a year
ago. You'll remember that Hamilton beat
Calgary at the Dome as 35,000 watched,
instead of 50,600, and Lions owner David
Braley — who had purchased the game for
estimated $2 million —~ mentally toted up
what his team’s little goof cost him.

But getting the script all wrong is a tradi-
tion in this Grey Cup business. It has been
going on ever since Albert Henry George
Grey, the fourth Earl and the nation’s gov-
ernor-general from 1904 to 1911, presented
the $48 mug in 1909 for the amateur rugby

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OF al

football championship of
Canada.

First of all, ater the
announcement, it slipped his
mind. He necded a nudge
from the cup trustees after
the University of Toronto
the — became the first winners bur
there was no cup to present
to them. He then had it
cratted and it was shipped
along quietly to the U of T in the spring of
1910.

Then, as he left for England a vear later,
he hoped that he might be remembered in
Canada for his proudest donation: the Earl
Grey music scholarships. If anyone out there
knows if the music scholarships still exist,
please send a note to this department.

What happened, of course, was utterly
unscripted.

More than 90 years later, the cup has
become the symbol for the biggest one-day
professional sports event in the country; and
the biggest week of Bacchanalian celebration
in this otherwise reasonably sober-sided
nation.

The late Jack Sullivan, the first sports
editor of The Canadian Press, tells tales of

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= SPORTS —————

Lord Grey’ $ Cup nas hag a wil

the cup’s unscripted movements through
Canadian football history in his book, Te
Grey Cup Stary.

Tt was, he wrote, disdained by western
teams of an early cra who wouldn't take a
train ride to play for it until they had settled
what they considered a much more impor-
tant issue: which railway line to take to the
ganic s

It suffered through the indifference of
sportswriters who didn’t refer to it by name.
For more than the first 25 vears of its exis-
tence, the hig game was routinely referred
to as the Canadian or the national champi-
onship.

Vern until Winnipeg brought it to the

Jest for the firse time in 1935 did it
became the Grey Cup game.

The cup itself was locked away and for-
gotten in a trust company vault during

Vorld War One. Two years after the war
ended, it was rediscovered by a relative of
the cup trustee who put it there. He told
the relative to “Get that thing out of here.”

A few years Jater it disappeared for a cou-

ple of years, but eventually was found i in the -

hall closet of the Hamilton Tigers’ manager
of the day. He'd been using it as an umbrel-
la stand.

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CARSON Graham senior boys. soccer. coach Paul
Alvaro played under Argyle’s Vince Alvano. ts

Aivaro takes. his cues.
from former sr. coach

From page &1

You guessed it — Alvaro and his Carson Graham cohorts:

Argyle was enjoying a 2-0 lead in the tilt when the Carson
kids exploded for three quick goals and the win. ;

“(Vince) couldn’t believe it. I guess his team gota little (over)
confident, thinking that they had the game won and my guys just
turned it on and we ended up coming up with the win.”

Alvano said he’s been impressed with his former player’ 's suc-
cess this season, but he’s still gor a long way to go.

“He’s a young coach. He’s got good potential. He’s still wet
around the ears, but you have to give him credit for what he’s

Alvaro knows where much of the coaching crediti is due, how-
ever, and he doesn’t forget i :
“Vince's coaching style is: definitely. unique. The’ way, To
duct my team as far as the way we play a lot of that carne from
the way Vince runs his team. He knows his stuff. I took a fot of.

“Sometimes that involves being really tough on some of your
players, but you be as tough as you can to get them to be the best

A provincial title is none too shabby for Alvaro, who was
asked to take the reins of the team only six days before the sea-

“All the other teams had been picked and they'd all been :
practising for a week and I hadn’t even had tryouts yet,” he. :

Not everybody was optimistic about Alvaro’s chances of suc- ..
cess with the young team. :

“I asked a couple guys I know to come and help, and they”
were saying “Oh my God, we’re going to get killed this year”

He said he’s learned a great deal being tossed onto the side-
lines with a group of guys as opposed to girls.

“Coaching girls is a lot more difficult because you have to be. :
careful what you say.and how you say it, whereas with the guys
you don't have to be as careful. But “there” 's still a certain tech:
nique to getting your point : across.” ~ :

lid ride

In 1947 it was the lone survivor of a dis-
astrous fire that swept through the club-
house of the Toronto Argonauts Rowing
Club. All the other trophies melted down in
the heat, but the smoke-blackened Grey
Cup survived.

The Lions spent a fortune to win it for
the first time in 1964, then left it behind in
a hotel room as they departed for the air-
port, Five years later it was stolen from its
showease at Lansdowne Park, home of the
champion Ottawa Rough Riders, and was
discovered two months after the theft in a
locker at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.

Since that iast unscripted caper, security
has been much tighter. No doubt the cup
will turn up safe and sound at McMahon
Stadium, a playpen that must be Canada’s
most haunted as far as the Stampeders are
concerned. Calgary fast hosted the big game
in 1993. And the Stamps of that year also
lost the western final at home, to
Edinonton.

The Eskimos went on to win the cup,
beating Winnipeg, 33-23. An omen, perhaps
for the game against the Alouettes?

Two torn up scripts in the space of seven
days?

Let us hope.

NEWS photo Jule tverson