Before the last game at Ivor Wynne Stadium, Angelo Mosca limped onto the gridiron. A weathered relic from a city’s past, he stood in the falling rain next to Grover Covington, John Barrow and the crippled remnants of men who once drew cheers from the old grandstands.
It was a moving and yet miserable sight—hobbled legends wilted in the rain beneath banners bearing their names while fans, dressed to withstand a monsoon, looked down from their condemned perch. All were gathered to say goodbye to a stadium that once defined a tough town known more for its grit than its charm.
There was Mosca, standing in the very midfield he once owned as a defensive tackle, leaning cautiously now on his cane, and thinking to himself how sad it is to mark the passing of time. And across the field stood Earl Winfield, reminiscing about the day he scored three touchdowns here in three different ways. Smiling, waving and noting how much affection he actually had for this rundown old stadium.
Watching the opening ceremony from the press box, I felt as if I’d stumbled into a funeral for someone I’d never known and certainly never grown to appreciate. A wrecking crew would soon lower this place to the ground, and yet I struggled to understand why anyone should care.
To my eyes, Ivor Wynne appeared as little more than a decrepit stadium that had outlived its purpose. A curious place that hid its allure from out-of-town visitors, like myself, who fail to find within its crumbling grandstands and broken seats the same romance or mystery that is the endearing salvation of stadiums like Fenway Park. “I’m going to miss this old place,” one reporter said as he took his usual seat in the corner of the press box. I waited for him to tell me why and, when he didn’t, I began asking myself what could possibly have ingratiated “this old place” to a man who had spent three decades sitting in this dingy room.
Was it the electrical wiring that dangled ominously above his head as he typed on his laptop? The pieces of masking tape stuck to the window in front of him? The discarded coffee cups that seemed to pile in every corner of this floor? The inexplicable sense that a family of raccoons was watching from their nest in a nearby stairwell? The general sentiment that this whole southern grandstand might be structurally unsound? Or maybe it was the backdrop of steel mills and smokestacks rising over the northern bleachers across the field? No matter. I wouldn’t have understood even if he’d told me.
Unconvinced of this place’s value I looked out the press box window at faces painted in tiger stripes. Trying to comprehend what had driven thousands of people to don their yellow rain coats and arrive, en masse, to scarf down cold cheese-steak sandwiches (a specialty in these parts, but certainly not a delicacy) and watch two of the worst teams in the Canadian Football League push themselves up and down a tired field. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stick it out,” Winfield had told me the day before the game. “I like football, and I like Ivor Wynne, but I don’t like it that much to stand out in the rain for four hours.” Yet there he was, watching, just like everyone else, as the modern Tiger-Cats took to that old turf one last time.
I doubt if years, months or even weeks from now I’ll remember the particulars of the game. That the Tiger-Cats beat the Blue Bombers 28–18. That they opened up the scoring by driving the ball 63 yards for a touchdown. Or that Brandon Boudreau took out Winnipeg’s quarterback with a first-quarter sack that could be heard from the concession booths.
But I’ll remember the sight of a rained-out crowd, blowing hot air on their fingers and screaming into an angry sky some awkwardly written limerick. I’ll remember the conflicted look on the face of a 78-year-old Pigskin Pete, as he made his rounds of the grandstands, just as he had for 31 years, engaging fans in that old familiar song. How he put his hand on my shoulder and told me his mother had knit him the sweater he’d worn to more than 300 games as the Ti-Cats’ most famous cheerleader. And I’ll remember how he raised an old bowler hat from his head and led 27,922 people to chant out words that I’ll never really understand.
“Oskie wee wee! Oskie waa waa! Holy Mackinaw! Tigers eat ’em raw!”
And I’ll remember Mosca, staggering out of the stadium before the game was over. He looked tired as he searched for his wife and told me he wouldn’t stay to close the place down, but that he hoped others would.
I’ll remember how my pen stopped working in the cold as I wandered through the stands speaking with fans. And how I wish I’d taken a photo with John Lusted, who looked like Randy Savage in his tiger-striped overalls. How he told me that Ivor Wynne embodies the city of Hamilton. That little else in town truly captures “the hard-core, smash-your-face-in kind of attitude we have.” And how he later revealed his sentimental side when he proudly showed me his third-row seat—the one he’d already bought from the team so that he could take it home after the game as a keepsake from the 45 years he spent as a fan at Ivor Wynne.
I’ll remember how the rain drained into the stadium instead of out and that some of the two-by-fours that passed as benches in these bleachers looked so loose they could be pulled from their hinges. How every seat was numbered by hand with a gold or black magic marker and that the corporate boxes were really just wooden shacks with signage erected in haste and dropped in the end zone. That the visitor’s dressing room reminded me of my high school football team’s dressing room. And that there was no way for the Ti-Cats to go from their dressing room to the field without brushing past hordes of screaming fans at the hot dog stands under the bleachers.
I’ll remember the disdainful look on Mighty Joe Montford’s face when I told him I didn’t really like this place. “We know there’s standing water,” he reminded me. “We know there’s nails poking out. We know there’s bricks broken. We know there’s a busted seat here or there. But at the same time, it’s ours. It’s part of our culture. We can talk about it. But if someone else talks about it, they’re in for a fight.”
I’ll remember thinking Ivor Wynne, named for an old Hamilton football announcer and community leader, was probably the most unique stadium on earth in which to watch a professional football game. And that this old place just seemed to have been plunked down in the middle of a neighbourhood. That Gino de Sarno let eight carloads of fans park on his grass during the game. And that part of him was really going to miss the old stadium wall that towered over his house from across Beechwood Avenue. And I’ll remember that I started to understand what this place was about when Angelo Marrama told me some of the fondest memories of his youth were forged while sitting on his grandparents’ grass and listening to the shouts pouring from the stadium and down his grandparents’ street.
I’ll remember how people seemed to appreciate Ivor Wynne because it reminded them of things they used to know. That this eyesore, built to host the 1930 British Empire Games, was actually loaded with a charm and character that would be lost when the demolition began. It was here where, in 1944, 3,781 war-weary football fans came out to watch as a team from the Canadian Navy won the 32nd Grey Cup. Where Pink Floyd blew up the scoreboard in 1976 and where the Argos and the Eskimos played for the Grey Cup 20 years later in probably the worst snowstorm in the game’s history.
And I’ll remember thinking how sad it seemed that the Ti-Cats were soon to be homeless.
After the game I asked quarterback Henry Burris where his team would play during the year it was going to take for the city to tear down Ivor Wynne and build a new stadium in its place. He said he didn’t know. And it struck me then as I watched him smiling with his teammates that maybe he didn’t care. Maybe the Ti-Cats’ future didn’t matter as much as their past. Not right now, anyway.
But most of all, I think I’ll remember stepping out of the dressing room, passing security guards struggling to stop fans from stealing souvenirs off the walls, and walking onto the field to listen as Ivor Wynne’s son took to a podium in the end zone and told those still left in the stands that his father really loved this old place.
I’ll remember how the rain stopped just in time for a pyrotechnics crew to set off fireworks over the field. That the smoke from those fireworks engulfed the entire stadium and that, for a brief but discernible moment, I stood at the five-yard line and couldn’t see a single other human being through the smoke. And I’ll remember how quickly that moment was over. And how lonely it seemed when the people started to leave.
The article originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine, i-pad edition.