As midnight drew closer on a trying administrative day that wasn’t anywhere near its conclusion, Craig Reynolds became emotional while marvelling at the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ fans.

The Roughriders’ President-CEO lauded the patience, presence and passion of the CFL team’s supporters on a night when, for the first time in franchise history, a game had been postponed on the same day it was to have been played.

Due to unacceptably high air-quality levels, the Roughriders’ Friday night game against the Calgary Stampeders was moved to Saturday afternoon, with kickoff slated for 2 p.m.

The teams and the CFL waited as long as was feasible — until 10:45 p.m. — while exhausting all options. Alas, the air quality did not sufficiently improve in time for the latest kickoff in more than a century of Roughriders football to take place.

“We did everything we possibly could to get this game in tonight,” Reynolds told the media shortly before 11 p.m. “Unfortunately, the weather didn’t co-operate, and the wind didn’t co-operate, and here we are.”

The silver lining is that the circumstances seem conducive to playing on Saturday without smoke being an issue.

In fact, it appeared the haze would blow over in time for an on-schedule kickoff. The air quality over Moose Jaw was not a problem. But then the wind came to a virtual standstill, the smoke continued to hover over Regina, and the difficult, albeit unavoidable, decision was made to announce the postponement.

“Unfortunately, we had to make a call at some point,” Reynolds said.

“Ultimately, we set the deadline of 10:45. If it hadn’t cleared by then and we couldn’t get the players out there for an abbreviated warmup, we were going to have to postpone the game to tomorrow.

“Obviously, it’s extremely challenging to do that. It’s challenging for our broadcast partner, TSN. It’s extremely challenging for the Calgary Stampeders to have to stay overnight.

“It’s extremely challenging for our fans and that’s not lost on me. I just can’t believe our fan base. I’m trying not to get emotional, but I was blown away today.

“I couldn’t believe how they were tonight and the number of people who stuck it out. After we announced that we were going to wait until 10:45, I thought we’d see an exodus, and we really didn’t. They stuck it out. They wanted to see football as much as we wanted to play football.

“We have the best fans. I’ve said it over and over but tonight proved it. We have literally the best fans in the world and we wanted to play football for them.”

Especially since 43 per cent of the Roughriders’ season-ticket members reside outside of Regina.

“The first thing I think about in these situations is out-of-town fans, because I grew up as an out-of-town fan,” Reynolds said. “I grew up in Foam Lake and I came to games. I thought to myself, ‘To have to drive back to Foam Lake tonight and then come back tomorrow is just incredible.’

“We’re going to provide some tokens of appreciation for our fans, regardless of whether they come tomorrow. For the fans who can’t come tomorrow, we will certainly take care of them in whatever form that takes — whether we can get them to another game or they need a refund.

“We will certainly accommodate our out-of-town fans and, really, all our fans, because we understand the inconvenience this is for them.”

Upon concluding Friday’s session with the media, Reynolds took part in a meeting that was held principally to discuss the quick and complex turnaround leading up to a rescheduled game.

“There’s co-ordination and communication with all the various groups,” he said. “It’s mostly staffing, such as confirming with our security groups that they can staff it.

“Craven’s going on, too. There’s another massive event in the province in close proximity, so staffing is huge — whether it’s security, concessions, transit … all those types of things. All the people we rely on are critical.

“Concessions is a real challenge and REAL has been great. When you think about it, they plan for a single game worth of food and concessions. That sort of happened tonight, because our fans were here for three hours. Now, at 2 p.m., we have to put on another game and have some level of concessions, so that’s going to be one of the biggest challenges.

“We’ve had early conversations and we think we should be OK, but it is a challenge and we haven’t got all the way through all the conversations we need to have.

“I’ve been so impressed with my team, with thinking ahead and being so proactive and starting that contingency planning early.”

Early, that is, on a later-than-anticipated night.

“We appreciate the challenge that this situation has now created for (the fans),” Reynolds said while patiently answering one final question from the media.

“I think of the family from Watrous that came to the game tonight, hoping to see Rider football, and might not be able to make it back tomorrow.

“There’s a bit of an apology in there, too, I think, because I’m really sorry we couldn’t get this game played tonight. We really, really wanted to, so there’s a bit of an apology and a bit of a thank-you to the fans for their energy and the passion that they showed tonight.

“There’s a hope that as many of them as possible can come tomorrow. They’re going to see a really good football game and they’re going to hear from us how much we appreciate them.”