Canadian football may not be on your list of favorite sports, and that happens mostly because it is not as popular as others. However, once you get the hang of how the game works, you may be in for a treat. However, if you have some new friends who are into Canadian football, but you have no idea how the rules play out, there is one way to show your interest. You can learn some things about it that may help you impress them. Here are a few of them.
1. The most Grey Cups, which is the Canadian Football SuperBowl, so to speak, have been won by the Toronto Argonauts. They hold 17 Grey Cups. However, the team that appeared the most in the big game is the Winnipeg Bombers. They had 24 appearances. I guess that they had their hopes up for quite some time, now. But you know how it goes. It is not about quantity, but quality.
2. The trophy that stands for the Grey Cup was donated by Earl Grey in 1909, hence the name. He was the Canadian Governor at the time. The cup was produced by Birks Jewellers. However, if you do the math, you will notice that the years do not add up. That is because there was no Grey Cup championship in 1916 and 1919.
3. The year when the most fans appeared to a Grey Cup Championship was 1977. That was the year when more than 68 thousand fans came to Montreal’s Olympic Stadium to watch the game. You may think that they were not that many, but as mentioned above, the Canadian Football League is not as popular as the NFL, for example.
4. Last year, the Argonauts, also referred to as the ‘Argos,’ played against the Calgary Stampeders. Why is that relevant? Because it was the fans of the Calgary Stampeders, who turned the Grey Cup into a large-scale event. And that was 70 years ago. In 1948, the Stampeders fans went to Toronto and ‘invented’ the Grey Cup Week. They kept the festivities going for days. Just out of curiosity, if you go to the Stampeders’ website, you will read about how Calgary fans made the Grey Cup what it is today.
5. We all know that Canada can be cold, but did you know that Canadian Football fans watched a game at -16 degrees Celsius? That happened in 1992 at the Grey Cup in Winnipeg.
6. The only non-Canadian team known to hoist the Grey Cup was the Baltimore Stallions. It happened in 1995.
7. Canadian Football has different rules from the American counterpart, even if they may seem similar to the not experienced eye. For one, thing, the fields are larger. Canadian Football fields measure 110 yards in length and 65 yards in width.
Canadian Football is not difficult to understand once you go over the rules a few times and watch a few games. Learning the teams can help too. If you want, you can experience a live game as well. The next Grey Cup Championship, the 106th Cup, will take place in Edmonton on 25th of November. You can find tickets online. Chances are that you do not need a visa. Canada has a lenient visa policy. You may need a passport, though.
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