If you believe in signs and signals and higher powers, in the idea that there was more to it than two teams on a football field, Sunday's Grey Cup gave you a lot to hang your hat on.
It began with Darian Durant, who fumbled twice within Saskatchewan's first four plays from scrimmage; he recovered his first fumble after being sacked and the second was nothing short of a miracle.
After rushing for three yards, Durant was smashed by a Ti-Cats defender. The ball came loose and flew 10 feet into the air, twisting and whirling before falling gently into the arms of Kory Sheets, who proceeded to rumble for 42 yards. It set up the Riders' first score of the game, a 15-yard touchdown pass to Geroy Simon that gave a hint of the romp to come.
Given that recovering a fumble is usually a 50-50 proposition, the Riders were more than a little lucky to turn a potential disaster into one of the biggest plays of the game.
Even the weather turned around. The freezing temperatures that had gripped Regina in the week before the game broke; it was hovering around zero all night and, outside of some wind, the weather wasn't much of a factor at all.
By halftime it was 31-6 and even the most pessimistic fans at Mosaic Stadium and across Saskatchewan had to be feeling good. It was a massacre, a rout, a blowout; whatever you wanted to call it, the game was all but over after 30 minutes.
Sheets had already run for over 100 yards and the passing game was humming along like a well-oiled engine.
That meant that after a painfully long intermission (Hedley??), the second half was little more than a prolonged coronation, a countdown to history. There was still a lot of football to be played - Sheets would pad his stats, setting a Grey Cup record with 197 rushing yards and being named the game's MVP - but it was hard to think about anything but the finish line.
The lopsided score meant there was plenty of time to appreciate the raucous crowd, which included actors Tom Hanks and Martin Short, a native of Hamilton. Hanks, ever the showman, played to the crowd by replacing his Ti-Cats toque with a Riders hat in the third quarter. Hanks might have been the most famous person in the stands, but there were tens of thousands of ordinary people that let their voices be heard all night long.
"The one thing that led us to a dominant performance was that the fans were unreal," Riders coach Corey Chamblin said after the game. "It was unreal. From pre-game warmup I knew it was going to be tough for those guys. I looked at them and said, 'I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.' I mean, it was ridiculous. The whole thing was green."
It was also an opportunity to say goodbye to a grand old stadium. Once Taylor Field, now Mosaic Stadium, it's been the Riders' home since 1936 and the Grey Cup was the last great game it will host before the Riders move into a new stadium in 2017.
When the Grey Cup was awarded to Regina, it was little more than a dream that the Riders would make it that far, let alone win the whole thing. There were peaks and valleys throughout the regular season: a 5-0 start, a four-game losing streak in the middle of the year. In the end, the team's true identity was more that great start than the mushy middle.
Having lived in Saskatchewan for about six months now, it's hard for me to overstate how much Sunday's game meant not just in Regina but also across the entire province.
About an hour after the game ended I took my dog out for a walk. As I stepped outside I expected to be greeted by the usual sounds of 10 p.m. in Humboldt: nothing. Instead I was greeted to cries of excitement from near and far, from down the street and on the other side of town. It reminded me of walking around downtown Halifax after Canada won the gold medal hockey game at the Vancouver Olympics.
As I made my way down the sidewalk a pickup truck took a left turn onto my street. In the back there were six or seven guys in various stages of delirium. They were wearing Riders jerseys. They were cheering and yelling and honking the horn and making a big, beautiful mess of what should have been a quiet night.
As they passed by, every one of them waved at me.
"Go Riders!" they yelled.
I waved back. I was wearing a Riders toque at the time, but I think they were just excited to see another human being at that moment.
The truck rolled away down the street, carrying the sounds of victory further and further away. By the time I returned home, the cheers were faint and far away, though still going strong. Another quiet part of town was being woken up.
