June 26, 2017

Craig Reynolds anxiously awaits the grand opening

The Saskatchewan Roughriders take on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in pre-season CFL action on June 10th, 2017 at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, SK. Derek Mortensen/Electric Umbrella

Craig Reynolds is feeling a version of Rider Pride.

Reynolds has been involved in the Mosaic Stadium project since its inception, so he’s going through a range of emotions as the Saskatchewan Roughriders prepare to officially open the new facility Saturday.

One feeling in particular stands out for Reynolds, who’s now the president and CEO of the CFL team.

“There’s an incredible sense of satisfaction, working with the city and the province to deliver this to our fans,” Reynolds said during a media conference Monday. “This has always been about our fans.

“Our fans deserve this type of facility and so to be able to deliver on that collectively with the city and with the province and to see the fan response and to see what Saturday is going to be — 33,000 Rider fans enjoying this incredible, world-class facility — I think pride is what comes to mind.”

The Roughriders are to play their first regular-season game at Mosaic Stadium on Saturday, when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers visit Regina. Game time is 7 p.m.

The Roughriders teamed with the City of Regina, the provincial government, Evraz Place and numerous other partners to build the $278-million stadium.

The facility already has staged two football games — a Canada West contest between the University of Regina Rams and University of Saskatchewan Huskies on Oct. 1, and a CFL pre-season game between the Roughriders and Bombers on June 10 — as well as a concert with headliner Bryan Adams on May 27.

The hope is that the lessons learned during those three test events will help things go smoothly during the Roughriders’ home-opener Saturday.

“There are some operational things that mostly are behind the scenes that are important to us but not necessarily fan-facing,” Reynolds said. “We learned a lot.

“There were some transit issues. We had a lot of people use transit — which is great; we promoted it — but now we’ve got to deliver on the transit side. We had some feedback on that.

“Generally, the feedback was really, really positive, which is what we were really excited about.”

Reynolds has said approximately 8,000 fans used the free Rider Transit shuttle service for the pre-season game. The Roughriders — who are paying for that service this season — are hoping for large numbers Saturday to avoid parking congestion on the Evraz Place grounds.

The test events also showed the Roughriders and their partners what can be expected regarding the stadium’s concessions and other amenities, all of which are to be operational Saturday.

Truth be told, the home-opener also will be a test event.

“Throughout this season, we’ll be continually improving on the experience,” Reynolds said. “We’ve gone a long way on what we learned in the test event, but we knew things would come up.

“It is a brand-new stadium and when you talk to others across the league who have opened stadiums, there’s a collective improvement that happens game in and game out. I think we’ll see the same thing here.”

The contest Saturday is to feature pre-game festivities inside the stadium and in the adjacent Confederation Park. The Coors Light Party in the Park will provide patrons with events akin to tailgating.

At halftime, there will be what Reynolds called a “large-scale” show featuring some 200 performers that will celebrate the province’s connection to the franchise. 

Reynolds liked the atmosphere inside the stadium during the pre-season game, but the home-opener will trump everything that happened on June 10.

“For us, that was our first time putting on an event here and so we always treated that as a test event,” he said. “Saturday is the opener, Saturday is where we’re going to have a full show and Saturday is where we’re going to really celebrate what we’ve accomplished here.”

In reality, the Roughriders will have an opportunity to show off the stadium to people across North America. The game is being telecast on TSN, which will run a Brian Williams pre-game feature about the stadium while the CFL on TSN panel will be on site.

It all adds up to what Reynolds called “one of the most important days in the history of this franchise.”

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to open a stadium, a state-of-the-art stadium like this, in front of our fans,” he added. “Our fans absolutely deserve this type of facility — and it’s a tie-in with Canada 150. It’s just going to be an absolutely amazing day.”

The home-opener also can set the table for a solid financial season for the Roughriders, who announced a modest profit at their recent annual general meeting.

If the economy and the team’s on-field performance are solid in 2017, the stadium conceivably could provide the organization with a monetary windfall.

“We hope to sell out every single football game here and we’re working hard to do that,” Reynolds said. “We put the fan experience first when we made design decisions with the stadium.

“That was the intent: To make this a great place to watch football. We hope people experience that on Saturday and keep coming back. (The prospect of financial success) is exciting.”