CHRIS & WENDY VAN STRATEN
Special to Argonauts.ca
True Argo die-hards, Wendy and Chris Van Straten will be blogging throughout Grey Cup week as they represent the Double Blue in Calgary.
After a leisurely breakfast at our nephew’ s home, we returned to the hotel to wait for the Double Blue Party Bus. When we boarded the party was in full swing. The music was blasting, fans were dancing in the aisle and we were ready to continue the party at the Unicorn.
The Wiser’s Double Blue bash was a blast – definitely the most successful Argonaut Grey Cup party to date.
Many representatives from all levels of the organization mingled with the Double Blue fans along with fans from every other team in our league. Bob Nicholson, Adam Rita and Bart Andrus shared in the good time and listened to the fans while master of ceremonies, Adriano Belli repeatedly encouraged everyone to have a good time and those assembled certainly took his advice.
Current Argo players Mark DeWitt and Matt Lambros were introduced and joined the party and former players Mike O’Shea, Damon Allen and Orlondo Steinauer were welcome additions. It is always great to reconnect with our alumni.
The crowd by the stairs grew and a buzz filled the room, when Michael ‘Pinball’ Clemons arrived. When he addressed the group the Argo pride was palpable as was the respect given him by fans from other teams.
We ended up sharing a table with a group of Ti Cat fans and it is amazing what you can learn after a few hours and a few drinks. It turns out that one of the people with whom we had spent the afternoon was responsible for removing and keeping our rear license plate at an Argo/Ti Cat game at Ivor Wynne Stadium two years ago. It seems that our ARGO FAN plate was just too great a temptation. In the true spirit of Grey Cup we had a good laugh and pondered the odds of us ever finding out who had taken our plate and of sharing a table them at the Double Blue Bash in Calgary two years later?