As midnight drew closer on a trying administrative day that wasn\u2019t anywhere near its conclusion, Craig Reynolds became emotional while marvelling at the Saskatchewan Roughriders\u2019 fans.<\/p>\n
The Roughriders\u2019 President-CEO lauded the patience, presence and passion of the CFL team\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Due to unacceptably high air-quality levels, the Roughriders\u2019 Friday night game against the Calgary Stampeders was moved to Saturday afternoon, with kickoff slated for 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
The teams and the CFL waited as long as was feasible \u2014\u00a0until 10:45 p.m. \u2014\u00a0while 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did everything we possibly could to get this game in tonight,\u201d Reynolds told the media shortly before 11 p.m. \u201cUnfortunately, the weather didn\u2019t co-operate, and the wind didn\u2019t co-operate, and here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
The silver lining is that the circumstances seem conducive to playing on Saturday without smoke being an issue.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we had to make a call at some point,\u201d Reynolds said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, we set the deadline of 10:45. If it hadn\u2019t cleared by then and we couldn\u2019t get the players out there for an abbreviated warmup, we were going to have to postpone the game to tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, it\u2019s extremely challenging to do that. It\u2019s challenging for our broadcast partner, TSN. It\u2019s extremely challenging for the Calgary Stampeders to have to stay overnight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extremely challenging for our fans and that\u2019s not lost on me. I just can\u2019t believe our fan base. I\u2019m trying not to get emotional, but I was blown away today.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t 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\u2019d see an exodus, and we really didn\u2019t. They stuck it out. They wanted to see football as much as we wanted to play football.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the best fans. I\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Especially since 43 per cent of the Roughriders\u2019 season-ticket members reside outside of Regina.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing I think about in these situations is out-of-town fans, because I grew up as an out-of-town fan,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cI grew up in Foam Lake and I came to games. I thought to myself, \u2018To have to drive back to Foam Lake tonight and then come back tomorrow is just incredible.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to provide some tokens of appreciation for our fans, regardless of whether they come tomorrow. For the fans who can\u2019t come tomorrow, we will certainly take care of them in whatever form that takes \u2014 whether we can get them to another game or they need a refund.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will certainly accommodate our out-of-town fans and, really, all our fans, because we understand the inconvenience this is for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upon concluding Friday\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s co-ordination and communication with all the various groups,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly staffing, such as confirming with our security groups that they can staff it.<\/p>\n
\u201cCraven\u2019s going on, too. There\u2019s another massive event in the province in close proximity, so staffing is huge \u2014\u00a0whether it\u2019s security, concessions, transit \u2026 all those types of things. All the people we rely on are critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cConcessions 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\u2019s going to be one of the biggest challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had early conversations and we think we should be OK, but it is a challenge and we haven\u2019t got all the way through all the conversations we need to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been so impressed with my team, with thinking ahead and being so proactive and starting that contingency planning early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early, that is, on a later-than-anticipated night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate the challenge that this situation has now created for (the fans),\u201d Reynolds said while patiently answering one final question from the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a bit of an apology in there, too, I think, because I\u2019m really sorry we couldn\u2019t get this game played tonight. We really, really wanted to, so there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a hope that as many of them as possible can come tomorrow. They\u2019re going to see a really good football game and they\u2019re going to hear from us how much we appreciate them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As midnight drew closer on a trying administrative day that wasn\u2019t anywhere near its conclusion, Craig Reynolds became…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-363760","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\/363760","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=363760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}