Missouri-based Rider fan plans to drive to Winnipeg for his 29th Grey Cup

While many Roughriders fans make their way east for the Grey Cup in Winnipeg, one is heading north.

Sports fan Brian Clark lives in the Ozarks, Missouri, but he was once working in Atlanta, Georgia as a Nestlé business manager.

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That’s where his love for the CFL, “all started.”

In 1996, Clark took his then-girlfriend out to an Atlanta sports bar named Diggers where a CFL game was playing on one of the huge projection TVs. The game was in Hamilton and Clark remembered how the teams continued to play even though it was, “snowing sideways.”

Looking at that game in the blizzard, he said it showed a “true fan experience.”

With players braving the elements, this version of football “didn’t seem to be so corporate driven,” compared to the NFL games Clark had watched. It also reminded him of growing up on a farm in northwest Missouri.

“We played in the snow and all the different elements. Skated on the pond when it froze,” he said. “It was a different time. It just reminded me of going back to the roots of football.”

Watching the Hamilton game, Clark told his friends he’d go the next year. While none of them took him seriously, Clark’s since proven how serious he really was.

He booked himself a ticket for the 1997 Grey Cup in Edmonton despite knowing, “absolutely no one.”

Working a high-pressure corporate job at the time, Clark said going to the game gave him some anonymity.

“No one’s gonna want anything from me. No one’s gonna know me. I’m just going to show up and have some fun,” he said about that game.

While in the elevator at his Edmonton hotel, someone saw him wearing a shirt from the Super Bowl and questioned whether he’d gone. When Clark said he had, it opened up the door to a range of knowledge-testing questions about sports – and he passed the test.

Clark said the group from the elevator invited him for drinks and then they all met up after the Grey Cup game. With the Argonauts and Roughriders as the two teams that year, Clark made friends with people from Saskatchewan.

When asked why he became a Riders fan, Clark said he was drawn towards rooting for the “underdog.” Plus, the team’s passion is “infectious.”

“[I’ve] been in soccer matches in South America, in Asia for sporting events. There’s just nothing that really rivals what the Riders put on, on an everyday basis,” he said.

But, his praises aren’t limited to only Saskatchewan’s team.

Clark said CFL fans as a whole are “more authentic” than those in the NFL. They support their team whether they’re winning or losing and he sees the organization as having, “generational fan bases.”

“The CFL, in its sheer essence to me, is all about the fan,” he said.

Whereas in the US, “everybody’s on the bandwagon,” according to Clark.

Even though Clark’s appreciation for the CFL began with watching a game played during a blizzard, he said “I don’t want frostbite or anything like that when I attend a game. But, just the authenticity, if you will, of seeing a game played the way it was meant to be played,” is what he said the CFL offers. (Brian Clark/submitted)

Attending every Grey Cup since 1997

It’s been 28 years since Clark went to that first Grey Cup game and he’s gone to every one since.

“It’s truly something I look forward to, just for the stress relief mentally,” he said.

He’s made lifelong friendships along the way and while people have passed, Clark sees the same people every year.

“It’s like we’ve not lost any time,” he said about when they meet up.

This year, his journey to get to the Grey Cup will take a little longer. With the American government shut down until Nov. 13, flights were getting canceled or delayed and Clark didn’t want to rake the risk of being stuck somewhere with “no way out.”

Instead, he decided to make the roughly 13-hour drive from Missouri to Winnipeg.

Even though Clark wasn’t willing to take any chances on making it to the host city, he hasn’t planned everything out, saying how this year he’s “kind of winging it and I’ll get my ticket when I get there.”

It’s all so he can experience a game unlike any other.

“[The] Grey Cup reminds me of what the spirit of football should be. It’s about the fans. [It’s] about the players, putting the best product, giving their best performance on the field, and then having fun along the way,” he said.