Thousands of fans cheered the Toronto Argonauts to a decisive 41-24 victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but it was the horseplay of another set of fans that drew media coverage this past Grey Cup weekend.
A group of Calgarians suited up in western attire and rode a horse into a downtown Vancouver hotel on the Thursday before the big game. The rider was Di Wensel, chair of the Calgary Grey Cup Committee, and horse was a black mare called Tuffy Nuff.
“It’s one of my most favourite things I do all year,” Wensel told a reporter last year when she rode Tuffy into a Hamilton hotel lobby. “I’ve been coming to the Grey Cup for twenty years, but being a part of this great, amazing group is fantastic, representing the city of Calgary and the Stampede is awesome.”
It’s a tradition that began in 1948 when, according to legend, a group of Calgary Stampeder fans traveled to Toronto for an epic match up against the Argonauts. An enthusiastic (and perhaps inebriated) supporter rode a horse into the lobby of the Toronto’s ritzy Royal York Hotel. On game day the Stampeders won and went on to win eight consecutive Grey Cups, thus a custom was born. And now, 76 years later, it continues.
It would seem that Tuffy Nuff is the unofficial mascot of the Stampeders and the Grey Cup, for a glance through the news archives such as this gallery on the Calgary Herald shows many different horses all identified as “Tuffy”.
“I saw Tuffy do it in 1948 and I’ve helped him do it since 1975,” said 88-year-old Cy Addley, another member of the Calgary Grey Cup Committee who has been on hand to watch a horse and rider enter hotel lobbies from the beginning.
No matter if it’s a horse of a different colour, one thing is certain: the sight brings joy and excitement to Canadian football fans from coast to coast.
“We feel so welcome wherever we go,” Wensel told the CBC. “Doesn’t have to be Calgary or even in Alberta.”
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