Count the band members of Blue Rodeo among the many people who were caught up in the emotion of this year’s Grey Cup in Calgary.
The Canadian band performed at halftime, playing a set list chosen by fans, and had a chance to watch the game from the field.
“The thing that’s amazing is that everything happens so fast,” Jim Cuddy, one of the band’s frontmen, told Sportsnet.ca. “The players are not as big as I thought they’d be, but every decision and every play goes so much faster than you can see from the stands or from TV. The decision making of the quarterback has to happen in a few seconds. They look like a bunch of normal guys that do something at hyper speed.
“Hockey is all about reaction and the phenomena of where the puck goes,” added Cuddy, who plays hockey and is a huge fan. “This is all about co-ordination of action, that’s why to me it’s as, if not more, fascinating if you don’t co-ordinate the action. If you don’t figure out how to counter what your opponents are doing, you look bad. And as soon as you figure it out, you look great.”
Cuddy was stunned by the finish, which saw the Montreal Alouettes win 28-27 on a 33-yard field goal to end the game. The Als missed a 43-yarder, but received a second chance because Saskatchewan fielded too many players on the field on the previous kick.
“Saskatchewan looked great (for most of the game),” Cuddy said. “They were figuring out everything. They did everything that was opposed to what Montreal thought they were going to do. Montreal just had too many weapons, I guess, in the end. It was like fate.”
Cuddy said he had always been a Canadian Football League fan.
“The four downs (in American football) makes it a much slower, a more ponderous game, but with three downs, you’ve got to get something going right away,” he said. “In the blink of an eye, things change. It’s incredible.”
While Blue Rodeo has played in big venues and in front of crowds numbering in the tens of thousands, the Grey Cup experience provided something different. The group’s bass player, Bazil Donovan, had an internal attack moments before the group took the stage. Alan Doyle, lead singer of Great Big Sea, had been hanging out with the group in its dressing room and nearly had to fill in as a replacement player, but Donovan recovered.
“It was freaky and when we got on stage (Donovan) was fine,” he said. “So it was incredibly focused excitement, really, really enjoyable.”
Greg Keelor, Cuddy’s fellow frontman, celebrated the Als’ victory with unabashed enthusiasm. He stood among the throng of media waiting to get into the Als’ dressing room, and repeatedly shouted, “Viva Les Alouettes.”
