Grey Cup Video Showcase

The Grey Cup (in French: Coupe Grey) is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team.

It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 4 million. The 2006 Grey Cup game was held in Winnipeg on November 19, 2006, where the BC Lions defeated the Montreal Alouettes 25-14.

The 2007 Grey Cup game will be held in Toronto on November 25, 2007 between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

In 1909, the Grey Cup was donated by the then Governor General of Canada, Earl Grey, to recognize the top amateur rugby football team in Canada. By this time Canadian football had become markedly different from the rugby football from which it developed. Over time, the Grey Cup became the property of the Canadian Football League as it evolved into a professional football league. Amateur teams ceased competing for the Cup by 1954; since 1965, the top amateur teams, playing in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), have competed for the Vanier Cup.

The Grey Cup has long served as an unofficial Canadian fall festival generating a large amount of national media coverage, celebration and fan interest from coast to coast. Many fans travel from across the country to partake in the week of festivities that lead up to the game. Historians date the carnival-like activities associated with the game back to 1948, when fans of the Calgary Stampeders dressed in western gear, square danced, flipped flapjacks, partied in the streets of Toronto and rode a horse through the lobby of the posh Royal York Hotel.

With the addition of American-based teams beginning in 1993, the possibility of the Grey Cup being hoisted by a team south of the 49th parallel loomed large. In 1994 the Baltimore CFLs (as they were referred to then because of an injunction issued on the behalf of the NFL to prevent this team from using the COLTS name) played in the Grey Cup in Vancouver against the home B.C. Lions. A late fumble on the goal line by Baltimore quarterback Tracy Ham gave the B.C. Lions a chance and Lui Passaglia connected on a game-winning FG as time expired, driving the sellout crowd at BC Place into a nationalist frenzy. This patriotic nationalism would be tested further in 1995 when the Baltimore Stallions returned to the Grey Cup against the favored Calgary Stampeders led by Doug Flutie. Baltimore won the game 37-20 and took the Grey Cup south for a bittersweet parade as Art Modell, owner of the NFL Cleveland Browns, announced his move to Baltimore for the 1996 season only one week before the Grey Cup.

After the 1995 season, American-based teams, many of whom were running into financial problems, folded. Only Baltimore remained and they relocated to Montreal. The Grey Cup has been broken several times. The trophy was broken in 1978 when Tom Wilkinson and Danny Kepley dropped it, and in 1987 when a celebrating Edmonton Eskimos player sat on it. It was again broken in 1993 when it was head-butted by Edmonton's Blake Dermott.

During the victory celebration immediately following the 94th Grey Cup game in 2006, the winning BC Lions accidentally broke the cup from its base, which contains the engraved names of the players on each years' winning team. It was repaired the following Monday.

Other notable events include a 1947 fire which almost destroyed the trophy and a 1969 theft in which the trophy was held for ransom. In November 2006, the CFL confirmed that they were entertaining offers from corporate partners for the naming rights of the Grey Cup.

Though the naming rights would apply to the Grey Cup championship game and not the trophy itself, many objected to the idea, claiming that the league should not compromise a national historic treasure for short-term profit.

Read the Wikipedia article about Grey Cup...

Photo author: JakeInVan from flickr.com