French connection: Normandy-born football fan savours initiation to Rider Nation

Guillaume Frenehard had a thirst for a first. 

So he travelled to Regina from Toronto to make a long-awaited introductory visit to Mosaic Stadium, where the Saskatchewan Roughriders are to face the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in Sunday’s Labour Day Classic. 

“I’ve seen the Roughriders play in Toronto, but not here,” Frenehard said during Saturday’s Fan Day festivities. “From what I’ve seen on TV, it’s pretty crazy.  

“I still can’t wrap my head around it. In a city of around 220,000 people, more than 33,000 will attend a football game. Not everybody can fill a stadium like that.” 

Not everybody has a story quite like that of Frenehard, who was born in Normandy on Sept. 8, 1985. 

Forty-some years earlier, his grandmother (then 12) and her loved ones helped to protect Canadian soldiers for two months when the French region was occupied by Germany during the Second World War. 

Paulette Bocquet and her family received a medal after the War in appreciation of the safe haven they provided to the Canadians. 

“It’s kind of funny that I would end up in Canada,” Frenehard said, “but it wasn’t something that I thought about when I moved here.” 

That was in 2010, 10 years before he became a Canadian citizen. 

While preparing for the citizenship test, Frenehard received plenty of study-related assistance from a close friend — Regina-born Andre Proulx (not the CFL referee of the same name). 

Upon meeting for the first time, Frenehard and Proulx discovered that they had a common interest in music and sports. With that in mind, Proulx (who now resides in Hamilton) made it a mission to ensure that his new friend became a fan of the CFL and, more specifically, the Roughriders. 

Success! 

Their initial plan was to attend a game at Mosaic Stadium in 2020. A global pandemic intervened, however, with one of the COVID consequences being the cancellation of the 2020 CFL season.
It was nonetheless a momentous year for Frenehard, who formally became a Canadian. 

Not long after that, he received a letter of congratulations — from Roughriders President-CEO Craig Reynolds. 

“He welcomed me to a new country,” Frenehard recalled, “and said, ‘We sure hope we can count you as a Roughriders fan.’ ” 

That sealed the deal. 

The next major step in Frenehard’s emerging (non-soccer) football fandom was to visit Canada’s gridiron mecca. 

He and his partner, Krissy Sumnauth, spent a week in Regina leading up to Fan Day. 

They are to return on Monday to Toronto, where Frenehard is the Intergovernmental Affairs Manager with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Additionally, he works in the wine industry, as does Proulx. 

Proulx has returned to his hometown for the Labour Day Classic, along with his wife (Anja Warunkiewicz) and their eight-month-old daughter, Spencer. 

To provide Frenehard with a sneak preview of what to expect on Sunday, Proulx visited the CFL’s website and found TSN’s telecast of the 2013 Grey Cup game — in which the Roughriders defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 45-23 at historic Mosaic Stadium. 

“It was very interesting,” said Frenehard, a long-time aficionado of rugby. “I had a few questions about some of the placings of the players on the field.  

“One thing that really spoke to me was how noisy — in a good way — the stadium was.” 

Frenehard visited the facility on Saturday and met several of the players and coaches during a well-attended autograph session. 

He also ventured to field level and walked around the artificial turf. While there, he ran into Roughriders Sales and Partner Relations Executive Zack Evans, who was throwing around a football with his son, Zander. 

Evans played for the Roughriders in the very same 2013 Grey Cup game that Frenehard had watched on CFL.ca only a few days earlier. 

That was one of the interactions that fuelled the appetite for Sunday’s sold-out showdown with Winnipeg. 

“The anticipation of the game is building,” he noted. “As the game gets closer, you see more green colours when you walk around the streets.” 

Frenehard’s own green wardrobe includes a jersey bearing the number 76.  

“Seventy-six,” he explained, “is the area code in Normandy.”