<\/a>\u201cHosting the Grey Cup in Winnipeg and festival in Winnipeg isn\u2019t just a celebration, it\u2019s a major economic driver,\u201d said Nellie Kennedy, the province\u2019s minister of Sport, Culture, Heritage and Tourism during a news conference Sunday.<\/p>\n\u201cThis event boosts local businesses, attracts visitors and puts Manitoba in the national spotlight.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham echoed the minister\u2019s thoughts and said businesses stand to make big gains during the week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great for our restaurants, it\u2019s great for our shops where people will come and buy some local products,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Businesses hope to cash in on excitement<\/p>\n
At Devil May Care on Fort Street \u2014 about a 10 minute walk from the RBC Convention Centre which has been dubbed \u201cGrey Cup HQ” \u2014 general manager and owner Colin Koop hopes they\u2019ll be able to cash in on the excitement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Koop said the local brewery and tap room sometimes sees a \u201cquiet period\u201d in the fall, but is looking forward to the event driving large amounts of people to downtown Winnipeg.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a bit of an unknown quantity out there, one of these smallest breweries certainly \u2026 in the city and in the province\u201d he said. \u201cAny opportunity to show people what we do well is definitely something I look forward to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 50 per cent of patrons are usually tourists, but with swaths of people expected to visit Winnipeg from around Canada, Koop said he hopes that number will double.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re right in the middle of downtown so there\u2019s lots of hotels around,\u201d said Koop. \u201cI know all the hotels are going to be packed up and we\u2019re kind of \u2026 in the middle of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Colin Koop is the general manager and one of the owners of Devil May Care Brewing Company (Gavin Axelrod\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Speaking to CBC News Friday, Manitoba Hotel Association president and CEO Micahel Juce said there was still hotel space in the city, but encouraged football fans who hadn\u2019t booked a space to act quick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are over 7,000 rentable rooms in the city, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be a nice large boost, I think we\u2019re expecting likely around 5,000 rooms a night, which is obviously great to see,\u201d said Juce.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One thing that will be missing from the festivities this year is the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who won\u2019t play in the league\u2019s championship game for the first time since 2018. <\/p>\n
However, that\u2019s not stopping Blue Bombers fans like Orvis from getting in on the fun.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been like 10 years, I volunteered at the last one,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s just great, it\u2019s great for the city, it\u2019s great for the province.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Daniel and Cheryl Graham, who have been going to Grey Cups for more than a decade and are going to their first CFL championship game since 2019, are also looking forward to the celebration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think the social aspect of it, the socialness of it, it is true \u2026 Manitoba is friendly Manitoba,\u201d said Cheryl Graham. \u201cEverybody will welcome everybody into town.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-273654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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