REGINA - It was a frosty start to the first full day of the Grey Cup Festival in Regina.
It was a cool day for outdoor festivities, as the temperature dipped down to minus 17 on Thursday. Most of the festivities on the REAL grounds proceeded as expected Thursday, with one major exception.
Due to the high winds and unfavourable weather conditions, the drone show scheduled for Thursday night was cancelled. They will try again with one show Friday at 9 p.m. and two on Saturday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night.
Fortunately, the chilly conditions didn’t stop the launch of the outdoor NexGen Energy Street Festival featuring its feature attraction, the massive SaskPower Tube Slide.
To celebrate the opening of that attraction, Saskatchewan Roughriders CEO and Festival Co-chair Craig Reynolds took on Regina Mayor Sandra Masters in a tube slide race. In the end it was Reynolds who easily outpaced Masters down the slide.
“I needed that win, Mayor Masters was talking a lot of trash today, I heard,” said Reynolds, referring to some of the pre-race hype.
Based on the reaction to the race, Reynolds told reporters he thought the tube slide would be a big hit with the kids. “It’s Saskatchewan in the winter, right? It’s what you do. And this slide, it’s running fast, I have to say. So, yeah, it’s going to be a lot of fun for the kids.”
Masters felt very good about the whole Grey Cup week.
“I just keep running into folks from out of town and about how happy they are to be here,” said Masters. “We know the hospitality industry needs some love and so to have our restaurants full and our hotels full, and actually just to bring our community together, I think that’s what the Grey Cup’s all about."
Those who preferred to stay warm at the Festival had plenty of options on Thursday. The organizers provided a media tour Thursday of some of the attractions at the Festival that opened to visitors that day.
Among them is the SaskPower Family Fair at AffinityPlex which is a family-focused area featuring large inflatables and a military obstacle course. On the other side was Huddle in the Heartland, a youth football area where drills and skills competitions could take place.
Gainer’s Heartland was another family-focused attraction focused on celebrating Saskatchewan, featuring photo booths, face painting, stuffy rides and food trucks. You might even see Gainer show up.
The team party rooms are set to run from 4 p.m. to midnight. Up and running on Thursday were the rooms for Riderville in the International Trade Centre and the “CFL’s Tenth Franchise,” Atlantic Schooners, in Co-operators Centre.
The other party rooms representing the other teams run starting on Friday at Co-operators Centre. All party rooms are open only to ages 19 and up.
For the whole family including those under age 19, the Digital Zone was fully up and running in the International Trade Centre following its preview night on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Brandt Centre promises to be a centre of the Esports universe Nov. 17-19. They held the Esports Showcase on Thursday, which served as a preview for the Path Glory Tournament that runs Friday and Saturday.
Bailey Dietrich, marketing director of SKL Esports, explained it will be a $50,000 prize pool tournament for the game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The event promises to attract the top gamers in North America.
“It’s going to be a nationwide event, so we’ve held kind of feeder tournaments all across the country in each one of the CFL cities, so we have representatives coming all the way across Canada who’s going to play in this event here for us," said Dietrich. "With that we have international players coming down from the States to come participate, too. With the prize pool being as large as it is, it’s pretty attractive for all of these players.”
He said this is the largest Esports event of its scale in Saskatchewan, with the largest prize pool in Canada for this game.
Most attractions run from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with the party rooms running from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday and noon to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
Those are just some of the attractions for fans and visitor Thursday. For the media and players, it was an even busier day.
Thursday was Media Day at the Grey Cup, where print, online, radio and TV representatives interviewed players and team representatives from both the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts over at Queensbury Convention Centre.
Over at Conexus Arts Centre, the CFL Awards were scheduled to go. The awards show was scheduled to start at 7 p.m. that night.
There are other Grey Cup related activities happening elsewhere in the city, with the CFLPA Players HQ setting up at the The Fat Badger pub, 1852 Scarth Street, Thursday and Friday between 3 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. that day.
Friday promises to be another active day at the Grey Cup Festival, with CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie set to deliver his State of the League address in the morning. The weather is expected to improve as Grey Cup Sunday approaches, with mild temperatures of -2 and sunny skies forecast.
