REGINA — The Saskatchewan Roughriders found themselves in pretty much the same position as their fans during the lead-up to the postponement of Friday night’s Canadian Football League contest against the Calgary Stampeders at Mosaic Stadium. Waiting and wondering what was going to happen as hour after hour passed by.
In the end, with wildfire smoke pushing air quality conditions off the scale and into dangerous territory, the CFL and its partners opted to postpone the game after a three-hour and 45-minute delay, officially calling things off at 10:45 p.m. after the original 7 p.m. scheduled start.
Through it all, the majority of the nearly 27,000 fans in attendance hung around and essentially enjoyed a night-long party, all while players from both teams waited in their respective dressing rooms and hoped for the best.
“I got to give love to our fans,” head coach Corey Mace said after Calgary’s 24-10 win on Saturday afternoon. “I got to walk outside after three hours of a delay yesterday and people were still out there buzzing. So, so much love to our fans. Really appreciate you guys and I appreciate the ones coming back today. That was awesome… I’ve never been a part of that and I don’t know who else has.”
The game was originally delayed to 7:45 p.m. with hopes that conditions would clear, but around that projected kick-off time, the contest was delayed indefinitely. That lasted until around 9:30 p.m. when the prospect of a three-hour delay would cancel the game, but all parties involved opted to wait until 10:45 p.m. Air quality readings were in the 130 range at that point, and the decision was made to postpone until 2 p.m. Saturday.
“I was on a couple of league calls, telling the guys, giving them updates as I got them and having a plan in place: ‘Hey, this is what we’re going to do when we go out there pre-game.’ It just never came,” Mace said. “But the guys, they dialed in. They were in a locker room together, trying to keep it light and walking that line of being prepared and potentially ready to go. Ultimately, I think as a league and as an organization, we made the right decision to postpone the game to today.”
Roughriders’ receiver Joe Robustelli — who would go on to have a career game on Saturday afternoon — said it was all a matter of keeping a professional focus regardless of how things turned out.
“You try and stay locked in as possible,” he said. “They come down and tell you it’s a 30-minute delay so you try and stay ready, but as the time goes on, it’s kind of a feel the game may be not happening.”
Riders’ strong-side linebacker C.J. Reavis said the team did their best to keep things fun in the dressing room, listening to all sorts of music and even breaking out some karaoke.
“We had a good vibe going in the locker room yesterday,” he said. “Then we tried to get a good night’s rest. We got back home pretty late, to be honest, so it was get some good sleep in and then do the same thing today.”
Interestingly enough, this wasn’t the first poor air situation for Saskatchewan — they had gone through a similar delay during their pre-season game against Winnipeg on May 24, with that contest eventually kicking off at 8 p.m. after a 7 p.m. scheduled start when the conditions cleared.
“You never know what’s going to happen, you try and stay as locked in as possible,” Robustelli said.
Saturday’s game was an unusual one from an organizational standpoint, but the vast majority of fans were understanding. And the Roughriders made sure to take care of all those who stuck around into the late evening Friday, as season ticket holders were offered a $50 voucher for the team store, single-seat ticket holders received a voucher for a future game and anyone who couldn’t attend Saturday’s contest was given a full refund.