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Riders president and CEO Jim Hopson during the Grey Cup announcement on Thursday in Regina

 

The 13th man will be hosting the Grey Cup in 2013.  The announcement was made on Thursday night, which was coincidently October 13th. 

CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon told a packed house at the Casino Regina Show Lounge that the 101st Grey Cup game would be played at Mosaic Stadium on November 24th, 2013.

Regina mayor Pat Fiacco says his city is ready to host another Grey Cup, "We have 850 more rooms then we had in 2003 and, I think, since 2003 we've hosted some major events in this city.  We're more then ready, we could actually host the 2012 Grey Cup right now and I can guarantee that we would do a better job then Toronto.

"With the plaza now that's downtown, with the Credit Union eventplex, with Co-operators Centre, none of that was here in 2003, so much has happened and there will be more development taking place in the mean time.

This is Saskatchewan's first Grey Cup since 2003 and third in total after they host the CFL Championship Game in 1995 for the first time.

Commissioner Cohon says it was time to come back to Saskatchewan, "I'm expecting bigger and better (then in 2003), the city has grown, the team has been so successful, the Rider Nation is uniting around this franchise and I think they'll be amazing hosts."

Fiacco expects this to be a provincial event, "I think that the Grey Cup, potentially like the Riders have traditionally done, have shared this event with a lot of smaller communities and I'd have to guess that's going to continue.  It's the Saskatchewan Roughriders and it's Saskatchewan's team and I have no doubt that it's going to be shared with the entire province."

The Grey Cup will serve as a cap off event for a huge year for Regina, with the 2013 Junos, and the province, with Memorial Cup going to Saskatoon.  Fiacco adds that just shows the diversity of Saskatchewan.

"The biggest challenge that I think political leaders have is picking winners and losers," said Fiacco.  "If funding goes to sports, then culture complains and if funding goes to arts and culture then sports complains.  I think that in this city and this province that we've done a good job of balancing both and talk about 2013 being a year of arts culture and sports."

Cohon predicted that the Grey Cup would have a close to $50-million economic impact on the City of Regina.

Click here to check out the announcement video from the event.

CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon's announcement: