For the seventh time in the team’s history, the Calgary Stampeders are Grey Cup champions after beating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 20-16 in a knuckle-biting CFL Final in Vancouver.
While the Stampeders dominated the first half of the game, leading 17-7 at halftime, the Tiger-Cats came fighting back but Calgary held them off for the win.
The win was John Huffnagel’s second championship as head coach of the team, the first coming back in 2008.
Huffnagel paid special tribute to the late John Forzani in the post-game ceremony, wearing a jersey with Forzani’s name and number, 54, on the back.
The team arrived at McMahon Stadium on Monday afternoon with the hardware to a blast of 'Go Stamps Go' from fans who braved the cold to be the first to see the coveted trophy.
"It's amazing, it's something that we, from day one said we wanted to do. We all stayed focused and we all had faith in ourselves that we were going to do it. A lot of people were not rooting for us, you know, of course everyone wants to see the team with the best record go down but we believed in ourselves and that's all that mattered," said Stampeders' Defensive Back, Jamar Wall.
"It's truly inspiring to be part of this organization, part of this team. It took a little while, I mean we won and especially with how it went down in the last second, it took some time to stick but now, fully realized the dream," said Running Back, Jon Cornish.
"Man it feels good to be champions," said Quarterback, Bo Levi Mitchell. "It's a satisfying feeling. Putting all that work in, six months in the off-season, and then five months during the season, right now just doing everything we had to do to get here but hopefully it's the first chapter in a very long book."
"I'm very pleased for a lot of reasons but most of all for the players. The players have won a lot of games over the last few years. They have had to accept certain things said about them, they changed those things and I'm very pleased about that," said Head Coach John Hufnagel.
The Calgary Food Bank also won along with the Stampeders, with Mayor Naheed Nenshi winning a bet with Hamilton’s mayor that saw a 100 pound donation of food for the organization.
A celebration is planned for Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. at Olympic Plaza.
