The Roughriders held a walk-through practice and barbeque lunch at Humboldt\u2019s Glenn Hall Park on June 3, 2018<\/a>, nearly two months after 16 people were killed and 13 others were injured in the bus crash.<\/p>\nA June 30, 2018 CFL regular-season matchup with the visiting Montreal Alouettes was designated by the Roughriders as the \u201cHumboldt Strong\u201d game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was an extremely emotional time,\u201d Reynolds recalled. \u201cI think everybody was struggling with, \u2018What do you do? How do we help this community?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI know we struggled as well. That\u2019s why we reached out to the Broncos to ask them, \u2018What can we do to help?\u2019 We had the \u2018Humboldt Strong\u2019 game and we came out here for the practice. I remember being there that day and that was very special and really emotional.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was also emotional \u2014 just being here and fulfilling that promise. We were in the dressing room when the guys announced the starting lineup with the Grey Cup. We were on the ice (for the ceremonial faceoff). It was special.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe heard the appreciation from the crowd for the team and of the Grey Cup championship. It\u2019s just a reminder that we\u2019re the province\u2019s team and the Grey Cup belongs to the province. Humboldt\u2019s an important part of that legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A full hour before the opening faceoff, the Grey Cup was on display at the arena, where members of the Harvard Media Rider Cheer Team welcomed all attendees.<\/p>\n
The lengthy lineup moved efficiently thanks to the efforts of Karina Peterson \u2014\u00a0the Roughriders\u2019 Manager, Game Entertainment and Community \u2014\u00a0who used the fans\u2019 own phones to take pictures for them.<\/p>\n
Oftentimes, Peterson held a phone in each hand, ensuring that horizontal and vertical pictures were taken with each mobile device.<\/p>\n
The photography was paused for a few minutes when the visiting Roughriders delegation headed downstairs and into the Broncos\u2019 quarters.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollow these guys,\u201d Broncos Head Coach and General Manager Brayden Klimosko told the players after Emilus and Picton placed the Grey Cup in the middle of the dressing room.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys are champions. They know how to win. They\u2019re going to lead our starting lineup tonight. We\u2019ll lead it off with Sam.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fittingly, the first player identified by Emilus wore a number \u2014 34 \u2014 that belonged to a Roughriders icon, George Reed.<\/p>\n
After announcing Marik Mamic (No. 34) as a starting forward, Emilus turned his attention to No. 89 (Morgan Hackman) and No. 72 (Avery Lowe).<\/p>\n
Emilus (No. 19) then handed off to Picton (No. 81), who was responsible for announcing the other three starters.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the left side, Number 8, Kai Holowachuk,\u201d Picton began, \u201cand on the right D, we\u2019ve got the guy with the best number in the league \u2026 Number 81, Ben Fofonoff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Humboldt-born goalie Brady Holtvogt rounded out the starting sextet.<\/p>\n
Holtvogt proceeded to make 34 saves \u2014 see again: 34! \u2014\u00a0to backstop the Broncos to a down-to-the-wire, 3-2 victory before the team\u2019s second-largest home crowd of the season (1,305).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really cool,\u201d Broncos President Amanda Schlachter said. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity for different people to come to the rink and enjoy the game and celebrate the Grey Cup that the Riders won. It\u2019s a great atmosphere for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings everyone together and we\u2019re having fun. That\u2019s what\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUMBOLDT \u2014 Wardrobe dilemma: Green or green? A pressing matter required resolution before Robyn Lopinski headed for Elgar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-462126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462126","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=462126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}