The last pro Grey Cup?

Jim
Kearney

THE SPECTATOR

HAVING ADVISED you one
week ago in this space to get
on down to the Canucks
office and demand your
money back, I now have fur-
ther advice for you: go out
and buy yourself a ticket for
the Grey Cup final, Nev. 27,
at the B.C. Place Dome.

Tam not shilling for the
Canadian Football League. I just
want you to be in on a piece of his-
tory. Given the sad shape of the
CFL these autumn days, this likely

could be the last Grey Cup game to
be played in Vancouver.

Indeed, it could be the last Grey
Cup game, period, as a big profes-
sional sports event. With the CFL
in the process of self-immolation.
the Grey Cup's future may be a
return to its turn-of-the-century

_ roots: a contest between senior

amateur teams, playing for little
more than honor and glory and a
few paragraphs down at the bottom
of the sports pages.

There is an early century prece-
dent. Before World War One, the
biggest — and original — East-
West final in Canadian sport was
for the Minto Cup, emblematic of
the nation’s professional field
lacrosse championship. At a time
when fewer than 100,000 people
were living on the Lower Mainland,
it could draw crowds of 15,000 or
more.

But in the 1920s, for reasons
nobody really knows, the game
died and the Minto Cup eventually
resurfaced as the trophy for the
Canadian junior championship in
box lacrosse.

If the CFL goes the same route,
everyone will know why. The
country no longer really cares and
the U.S. experiment hasn't caught
on, Las Vegas is dead. The last
home crowd was about 7,000.
People go to Vegas to gamble, not
watch football. Had there been

wall-to-wall slot machines down
either sideline, the game might
have survived.

The Gliebermans, father and
son, have mounted as big a disaster
in Shreveport as they did in
Ottawa. Sacramente also is a
money-loser. it, too, will fold.
That's a given. Only the Baltimore
No-Names are making it at the
gate.

In Canada, the Hamilton Tiger-
Cats are broke and will finish cut
the season as a Jeague-supported
orphan. Hamilton, for the first time
this century, won’t have a team
next year.

Everyone else is losing money,
too. Calgary Stampeders owner
Larry Ryckman is threatening to
take off for San Antonio, which has
a big and empty domed stadium. If
he does, the CFL’s only superstar,
Doug Flatie, will go with him.
He's under personal contract to
Ryckman.

But most important of all, the
CFL is a basketcase in Toronto.
Even though the Blue Jays haven’t
been around since early August, the
Argonauts play to acres of empty
SkyDome seats. In a city that size,
25,000 people should wander in
just by accident. But they don’t.

These are the prime reasons you
should attend the 1994 Grey Cup

See Basket-case page 18

For a free consultation contact:

College Prospects of America, North Van.

Call David 924-1143

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