Tomorrow afternoon, the Calgary Flames will face off against the Montreal Canadiens in front of 40,000 hockey fans at McMahon Stadium (CBC-TV, 4 p.m. start). Last I heard, the temperature at game time was predicted to be minus seven. Compared to what we’re enduring today, that’s not too bad.
In Friday’s Leader-Post, there was an article on the hockey game that recalled another famous cold weather game in Calgary sports lore. That occurred in 1970 and involved the Calgary Stampeders squaring off in Regina against the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the third game of the best of three CFL West final.
Last July 1, as the Riders were about to kick-off the 2010 CFL season against the Montreal Alouettes, against whom they’d suffered a heartbreaking loss in the 2009 Grey Cup game, I did a blog post where I identified the 1970 game as the most devastating loss I’d suffered when I used to follow the Riders.
In the L-P story mention is made of video of the game being available on YouTube. Here’s a link to a segment that shows the pre-game show with Don Whitman and a frozen Frank Rigney in the booth, and Ernie Half-a-Can-of-Gas on the sidelines. Other segments are posted, so if you want to see how the teams fared in those horrid conditions you can. And remember, the temperature of three above that they mention is Fahrenheit and not Celsius.