The Edmonton Eskimos won their first Grey Cup in 10 years on Sunday after beating the Ottawa RedBlacks 26-20 in a tight defensive battle in freezing temperatures in Winnipeg. This was Edmonton’s record-setting 25th appearance at the big game (Only Toronto (16) has won more).
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NOTEBOOK: The attendance of 36,634 was the second-smallest since 1975…
Reilly took the Eskimos from their own 21 to the endzone with the half’s final possession, using all but the last 12 seconds before hitting an uncovered running back Akeem Shavers from three yards out, the second time in three plays the Edmonton running back had been left utterly alone.
This was a bitter ending to the season for Ottawa, appearing in its first Grey Cup since a 26-23 loss to Edmonton in 1981.
The Redblacks advanced to the big game in just their second year in the league.
But their chainsaw wasn’t welcome at Investors Group Field, where the second-year Redblacks faced the Edmonton Eskimos in Sunday’s CFL championship game.
Before the end of the first quarter though, Edmonton and former Lions quarterback Mike Reilly would claw out of the hole first with a field goal followed up with a 22-yard strike to Adarius Bowman to cut the deficit to 13-10.
But Jones says he’s not worrying about that now. The 103rd Grey Cup in Winnipeg was watched by 9.7 million or almost 30% of everyone in Canada, according to the preliminary data from Numeris.
Sure, in this particular instance video replay was correct, as Sermons did make contact with receiver Derel Walker before the ball arrived.
An educated guess is that 14 of 46 players on the Redblacks’ active roster for the Grey Cup game can become free agents if they’re not re-signed by mid-February, including Lavoie, defensive tackle Shologan and eight others claimed in the December 2013 expansion draft. “I know what it means in the city to bring a championship home”, said nine-year veteran Calvin McCarty.
“I just find it heartbreaking to lose a Grey Cup on two…” He has now lost two of the last Grey Cups as the starting quarterback.
Dressed in team colours with a bright, fuzzy red-haired toque, Maisonneuve said they have loved every minute of the party. They looked set to retake the lead after a successful fake punt moved them into Ottawa territory but Whyte clanked a 35-yarder of the right upright and the Redblacks to a one-point advantage into the fourth.
While we’re at it, let’s review every down of football ever played and we will find numerous holding and DPI penalties. “And that’s what makes it so disappointing to get this far and not get it done”. I’ll see how I heal up in the off-season, see how the ankle is feeling and we’ll go from there.
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“Yeah, I don’t think I woke up this morning doing my workout at about 5 a.m. thinking, ‘Man, I hope we’re down 13-0.’ That’s not how we planned it”.
