The Grey Cup and Vanier Cup could be getting back together.
The CFL championship and Canadian university football national title games haven’t been played in the same city since 2011 and 2012. The two events were paired in 2007 and 1973, both in Toronto.
CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie has been working with USports CEO Graham Brown on a reunion of sorts.
“We’ve been talking about how we come together. If you look at the analysis of all the strongest pro sports in the world, they have a correspondingly very strong amateur football system and we can never reach the full potential of the Canadian Football League until we reach the full potential of USports,” Ambrosie said on CKRM The SportsCage.
“Graham and I and all of the USports community are talking about realigning Grey Cup and the Vanier Cup because we know that’s a winning formula. It’s something that we really need to focus on and make sure that we’re working together to help strengthen our university sports, the cascading effect of that is going to be a positive effect on amateur football in this country. And that’s something that we absolutely have to be dedicated to.”
The all-time Vanier Cup attendance record was set in 2012 at Rogers Centre when 37,098 watched Laval beat McMaster a rematch of the epic double overtime thriller from 2011 that the Marauders won 41-38.
The Vanier Cup is booked for Quebec City (2019) while the CFL has Calgary set (2019) and awarded the Grey Cups to Regina (2020) and Hamilton (2021.)
Holding the Vanier Cup in Quebec City has been an easy fallback option for USports because of the support in the city for football powerhouse Laval. If USports could find a way to move it for 2019 and link the Vanier Cup with the Grey Cup, that would be a win.
