Coffees and Kickers
Season Ticket Chronicles: Part 1
May 29th, 2025
Princess Auto Stadium, Winnipeg
Ah, a fresh breeze on a hot day.
Walking up to Princess Auto Stadium with hundreds of other ticket holding Bomber fans is a feeling like few other. Win or lose, it’s going to be a good day. The sentiment holds true because it’s the pre-season and what’s on the scoreboard doesn’t matter. The game won’t even be televised but myself and 27 thousand others are here to watch it go down in real time.
It being preseason fans expect a few whiffed punts and dropped passes. Don’t worry about memorizing the roster because they won’t all make the cut. For many on the field today is their dress rehearsal for the Canadian Football League. With any luck they’ve gone over their lines enough times to make the call sheet.
Squint to check the game program to see who made the big play but the Blue Bombers roster was ordered alphabetically which might work wonders for the super fan but when all you know about a man on the field is his number it can be a chore.
1st and 10 and the linesman had a two on his yard stick. The Real Slim Shady started playing over the stadium speakers and was quickly ended before a lyric was uttered. It’s all our first game back; we’re all shaking off the cobwebs today.
I got up for a coffee during gametime and missed a Bomber pick six which was afterward ruled incomplete. Still, the crowd loved it, or so I heard from the concession line. My seat was in the shade the entire game and, with the wind, became the coldest 30-degree afternoon I’ve experienced so far and I was hoping a cup-o-joe would warm me up a bit. The nearest food purveyor didn’t have any coffee but luckily the wind slowed, and a couple stadium dogs brought my body temperature up for a while.
I’d lost my sunglasses somewhere between June of last year and gameday so I grabbed a pair from a gas station on my way to the stadium. I didn’t know sunglasses sold for as cheap as $13 after taxes. They fit about as well as the price suggests. The wind came back on and I started to get chilled again. The first booth I checked had no coffee but I would prefer that coffee to warm up around to fend off the bizarre chill of the shaded seats on that hot May afternoon.
The Bombers played well enough. Midway through the second quarter the starters were pulled and the B-team was in. That’s who we came to see. The boys left fighting for a job, those last couple spots on the roster.
The biggest play of the first half was a pick at mid field for the Blue Bombers in the last two minutes. Something good to lose a bit of your voice over. All boots in the first half with 4 four field goals between the two teams. 9-3 Bombers at the half.
I went to two more food and drink stands, no coffee. A third place said no deal. Down the ramp to the 100 level in my good enough sunglasses while my socks and sandals squeaked with every step. The first person I asked gave a confused ‘yes’ when I asked if they had coffee. Success.
As I crept back to my seat with a hot coffee at long last Don’t Stop Believing came over the stadium speakers. Right-o.
It was a game of two very different halves and no touchdowns. Our starters beat their starters in the first bit and their bench beat ours in the second, in yards at least.
27,913 tickets sold, 8 field goals made all day, two missed field goals for Saskatchewan.
15-9 Bombers beat the Roughriders.