Nickelback sends Grey Cup for a loss

Statue of Terry Fox waves goodbye to fans at B.C. Place

VANCOUVER–Where did all the people go?
That’s what I was asking as I walked around B.C. Place today, one day after the sold out stadium with the thorny new lid played host to the 99th Annual Grey Cup. (I’m on the Left coast to visit the set of the new CBC drama Arctic Air. More on that later.)
The home team took the CFL championship trophy Sunday night and everybody played nice afterwards. There were no signs of public mischief like after the Stanley Cup finals. In fact, there was probably more rioting at the Bramalea City Centre on Black Friday than in Vancouver post-Grey Cup. Today the stadium area was completely deserted.
TSN may also be asking where’d everybody go now that the overnight, estimated numbers are in. Sunday’s Lions/Blue Bomber tilt drew 4,384,000, down more than half a mil from last year’s TSN tally, which was 4,941,000.
It probably didn’t help that the game was a bit of a dud. The Bombers didn’t wake up until it was deep into the fourth quarter. Two Western teams in the final might have also brought the numbers down in the east.
You’d almost never know the Grey Cup game had been played here a day after the event. Everything had already been packed up and trucked out of the stadium. It was getaway day, with CFL commish Mark Cohan spotted walking the other way this morning with his family at the airport. A cab even pulled up to take home both fans of Nickelback.

TSN drew 2,485,000 with their pre-game Grey Cup Countdown. The post game show drew 2,070,000.
The game hardly put a dent in CTV’s usual strong Sunday tally. The Amazing Race still drew 2,242,000.
The Fox statue, by the way, is pretty cool, a series of four statues which get progressively larger and more heroic. Can’t halp but think Terry is following me across Canada, however, Snapped the shot to the left last Wednesday when I was in in Ottawa, where a statue of Fox stands directly across the street from the Canadian Parliament buildings. Ottawa’s snowy conditions stand in contrast to Vancouver’s sunshine. Hey, it’s a big country, as Fox knew better than anyone.