5 days Ago By Steve Simmons
Article content The Grey Cup celebration is always a moment in time — a reason to shout and scream and chant and drink and and then afterwards so many go their own way. While still walking together for the rest of their lives. On Tuesday afternoon at Maple Leaf Square, the Argos drenched about 2,000 of their fans in Double Blue confetti, other were soaked by the spraying of champagne, while some players shouted incoherently into the microphones and this special team that came together as one on Grey Cup Sunday will soon be headed in so many directions.
The way almost every football season ends in Canada. The most outstanding player in the Grey Cup, Nick Arbuckle, became a new cheer of sorts at the championship celebration. The very rabid, very loyal, very loud and somewhat small Argo crowd altered their lifelong cheer at Maple Leaf Square.
Instead of Arrr-ghhhos. It became Arrr-buckle. It was for the quarterback they barely knew.
The quarterback with the little daughters who have been all over television and tried to lift the Grey Cup themselves on Tuesday. The quarterback who is now a free agent — still wanting to play, not sure if that means he will play in Toronto or anywhere else next season. “We’d like to have Nick back,” said Ryan Dinwiddie the suddenly legendary head coach with two championships to call his own.
“I talked to his agent and told him that. I think he has a chance to make more money someplace else. We pay Chad (Kelly) a lot of money here.
I know Nick’s comfortable here. I just don’t know if we can do it.” And one thing that might keep him an Argo.
Dinwiddie has all but promised Arbuckle a coaching position on his staff when his playing career is over. So there is that decision that needs to be made. There is another big decision likely awaiting Dinwiddie.
Does he want be coach only or does he want to be coach and general manager? His mentor, John Hufnagel, has those two positions in Calgary for a long run. And with personnel whiz John Murphy likely leaving the team — he wasn’t seen at the Grey Cup celebration Tuesday — he might wind up with in-the-need Stampeders. That would open up more work for Dinwiddie, who likes the idea of being involved in personnel decisions, but not sure he likes the idea of giving up play-calling, which he might have to do to take on the extra assignment.
Michael (Pinball) Clemons is the general manager in title but not necessarily in responsibilities. A football team needs to find players. Pinball’s strength is more people than scouting.
The Argos, as usual, are in some kind of flux, with the front office in need of clarification, ownership about to shift from a Larry Tanenbaum-run team to a Rogers-owned franchise — and Tanenbaum was on stage singing the praises of the Argo success at Maple Leaf Square. This has been an historic dozen or so years for Tanenbaum and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. The Argos won in 2012 and 2017 and 2022 before this Grey Cup was won.
In between all that, the Marlies won an AHL championship, Toronto FC won MLS, the Raptors won the NBA. That’s seven championships, some large, some small, over 12 years. And yesterday may have been Tanenbaum’s last time on a Toronto sporting microphone with his chairmanship of MLSE about to come to an end.
Wynton McManis, the Argos’ best player and the best Argo in the Grey Cup, is a free agent. Dinwiddie is already sharpening his pencil to see if he can do the math on another McManis contract. Like Arbuckle, he wants to stay.
Like Arbuckle, in a short career, he knows he needs to maximize his opportunities, both financially and football wise. Keith Pelley went to the podium at the Argo celebration for the first time as president and CEO of MLSE. This was his second Grey Cup win, the first coming when he was president of the club in 2004.
Pelley was all dressed up in Double Blue, sporting a wide grin and and an optimistic outlook for the future. It’s always hard to talk about this great team without referencing they are last, year after year, in attendance. The biggest city and the smallest crowds.
Kelley wouldn’t put numbers to it but promised more people in the stands next season. More in the future. It’s hard not to be enticed by all this Toronto enthusiasm but the reality is, when the Raptors won the NBA, about a million people took to the streets.
At most Tuesday, there were maybe 3,000 people in attendance. But that number didn’t matter to Dejon Brissett, the quintessential Canadian on the Argos roster. Brissett, who caught a touchdown pass Sunday, followed it up by spraying champagne and then apologizing for doing so.
Could he be more Canadian than that? HIs story, though, like so many Argo stories, is from the library of the hard to believe. “I’m just a kid from Mississauga, Ontario, Canada,” Brissett told the crowd before giving his home address. “If I can do it, and my brother can do it, you can do it.
” he said before announcing that Grey Cup 2025 is 362 days away. “And I’m already ready.” Brissett is the older brother in a most remarkable sporting family.
His younger brother, Oshae, the former Raptor, was on the Boston Celtics team that won the NBA title earlier this year. With Dejon winning the Grey Cup, they become the first pair of brothers to win a Grey Cup and a Larry O’Brien Trophy in the same year. “Pretty unbelievable,” said Dejon.
“This is what you play for. This is history, man. I don’t believe it’s ever happened before, and we’re going to win again, we’re going to win it next year.
” Arrr-ggghos. Arrr-buckle. So much to think about.
So much to celebrate in that very intimate kind of Argo way. [email protected] twitter.
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