Thirty years later, it is time to celebrate a golden anniversary.
This is written with the understanding that such a milestone is customarily observed at the 50-year mark.
But, in this case, we are remembering the Sacramento Gold Miners and a truly momentous event in Saskatchewan Roughriders history.
Aug. 27, 1993 marked the first visit to Saskatchewan by a United States-based expansion team, during the first of three CFL seasons in which American clubs — none of which dressed a single Canadian player — participated.
The hype, sparked by a pre-game ticket blitz, was such that an overflow crowd of 33,032 visited dear old Taylor Field. It was a record gathering for the Roughriders, whose home facility then had enough room to seat 27,637 paying patrons.
The other 5,395 attendees sat in the temporary bleachers or wedged themselves into a mass of humanity behind one of the end zones.
“It felt like a Labour Day game,” star slotback Jeff Fairholm recalls, all these years later.
In keeping with the Labour Day vibe, it was a (small-c) classic.
Dave Ridgway, the peerless Robokicker, calmly nailed a 35-yard field goal on the final play to give Saskatchewan its fifth consecutive victory — a 26-23 nailbiter.
The moment Ridgway split the uprights, fans spilled on to the field and mobbed the players.
“It was a tremendous atmosphere that day,” Ridgway remembers. “There were so many people and every one of them seemed to be into the game.”
The same description didn’t necessarily apply to the home team in the early going.
Sacramento jumped out to a 16-0 lead before a Ridgway field goal, from 48 yards, put the Roughriders on the board shortly before halftime.
The Gold Miners also carried a 13-point lead (23-10) into the fourth quarter.
“Considering that the game ended up being a fairly memorable one in the end, you really wouldn’t have predicted that at halftime,” Ridgway reflects.
“Thankfully for the fans and for us, we started to get it together as the second half progressed.”
Early in the fourth quarter, Kent Austin’s 50-yard bomb to Fairholm set up a 19-yard touchdown toss to Don Narcisse. Ridgway’s conversion pared Sacramento’s lead to 23-17.
On the Roughriders’ next possession, Austin found Ray Elgaard — who had caught a 27-yard TD pass in the third quarter — for gains of 25 and 20 to set up a 27-yard three-pointer by Ridgway.
Ridgway was unerring once again with 2:39 left in the game, hitting a 46-yarder to create a 23-23 tie.
“One of Sacramento’s players had done some chirping as he came off the end in an attempt to block the kick,” Ridgway says. “I don’t think he was exactly encouraging the ball to go through the uprights.
“And then, a couple of minutes later, we were back on the field to try a last-play, game-winning field goal. This time he was a little more vocal.”
The crowd was much noisier, mind you, after Ridgway’s successful 35-yarder — a clutch kick that he celebrated with long-time holder Glen Suitor.
“As the kick sailed towards the uprights, Glen grabbed the Gold Miners player and politely questioned him as to whether he knew who I was,” says a chuckling Ridgway, a 2003 inductee into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.
“I can’t lie. In a tense, high-pressure situation, it was pretty dang funny, and perhaps as athletes we were being a little — or a lot — too cocky at that exact moment.
“I will, however, add that the Gold Miners player wasn’t particularly polite in how he answered Glen’s question.”
Roughriders fans answered the call in impressive fashion after a difficult start to the 1993 season, attendance-wise.
The team’s first three home crowds were 17,566, 18,212 and 20,254. As a result of the poor turnouts, the Roughriders were projecting dismal financial results for 1993.
Hence the Keep the Pride Alive campaign — a two-week ticket blitz that proved to be a sensational success.
With the Aug. 27, 1993 game as a catalyst, the Roughriders averaged 26,437 customers over their final six home dates.
Sacramento’s introductory visit was, in the final analysis, a gold mine.
