Saskatchewan Roughriders making the most of home away from home

(Keenan Sorokan/CTV News)

The Saskatchewan Roughriders have spared no details in preparing the perfect game-day experience for fans attending Saturday’s preseason game at Griffiths Stadium.

When the Riders announced a preseason game would be played at the home of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, leadership knew an elevated experience would be a challenge, and staff have been working tirelessly to bring as much of Mosaic Stadium to Saskatoon as possible.

“I think as a community and team, we talk about being provincial all the time and I think the really cool thing about this opportunity is that we get to show it,” Karina Peterson, the team’s manager of game entertainment and community, said.

As the team prepared for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on the field Friday, staff of all kinds were zip-tying signs to fences, building advertising frames and helping move equipment to various parts of the stadium. From president Craig Reynolds down to the team’s historian, everyone was needed to give the stadium a more Roughrider feel.

“It is all hands-on deck,” Peterson said. “Not one person in our organization has said that’s not my job.”

Moving Riderville to Saskatoon has come with a number of challenges for the more rugged and aged Griffiths Stadium. Dozens of additional or third-party personnel were called in to overhaul stadium comforts and technology.

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Peterson said Griffiths doesn’t have the necessary sound equipment for fans to hear the referees or music between whistles, a comfort that CFL fans have come to expect, so that equipment was brought in.

Additional internet, camera equipment, production trucks, refrigeration, fencing and other materials were also needed.

To make it all work, generators were brought on site with cable strung from the stands.

“I give major kudos to the Huskies — their stadium is barebones,” Peterson said.

Large tents for the VIP area have been installed at the north end zone, but the southern end zone is what will catch the eye of most fans. Next to the decades-old Huskies scoreboard is a massive video board that was trucked in from Edmonton — touted as the largest mobile video screen in North America.

Peterson said it has been a long time since a Rider home game was held without video capabilities. Plenty of back and forth was had over the offseason to secure something in time, and she says it was a relief for staff knowing a suitable video screen was secured.

With up to 10,000 fans expected for the first CFL game in Saskatoon since 1991, more emphasis was put into the large amounts of standing room tickets sold.

This intimate experience will change how smaller details like fan giveaways and entertainment breaks are handled with patrons being much closer to the field and more accessible. Fans will be able to walk throughout the stadium unrestricted.

The Riders Pep Band will be making the trip to replicate the experience at Mosaic Stadium, but Peterson knows not everything in Regina will be placed in Saskatoon.

“I would hate to copy and paste what we do at Mosaic Stadium, because I think that would be a miss,” Peterson said. “I think it’s a unique thing to make sure that we’re providing the level of entertainment that we want to here at Griffiths, while still recognizing that we are in a different place.”

Reynolds, an alumnus of the U of S, has been feeling the buzz before Saturday’s game and he can’t wait to see how fans will receive the team.

“I went to Husky games here, so to walk in here and see it’s sort of Rider-ized now with all the pageantry it was emotional and something we’ve wanted to do for a number of years,” he said.

Festivities begin at 2 p.m. with the traditional party in the park seen outside Mosaic Stadium, complete with games, music, beer gardens and plenty more ahead of kickoff.

It may have taken Saskatchewan’s prized professional football team 35 years to return to Saskatoon, but Reynolds says he hopes the next return to Saskatoon will be much sooner.