Wednesday, 11:30 a.m., corner Crescent and De Maisonneuve. The Montreal Alouettes procession is ready to set off. The “olé, olé” has already started. The boots are already soiled with wet snow. And maybe a little spilled beer too.
“This is what our city needs,” Sandra tells us, as we approach a few meters from the buses preparing to leave. She is dressed in her favorite blue, white and red sweater and toque.
“No one expected that,” she said, before resuming her shouts and songs in praise of her Alouettes, crowned Gray Cup champions three days earlier.
Not far away, quarterback Cody Fajardo signs autographs. He sits comfortably on the side of a convertible car. The Gray Cup MVP offers his signature on a piece of paper to a fan, who is interviewed afterwards.
“It’s one of the most beautiful matches I’ve seen in my life,” emphasizes Luc Pelletier, who has to raise his voice as the procession sets off to the cheers of the crowd.
No, Montreal has not forgotten how to celebrate its champions, despite 13 years of sporting drought. Sparrows fans converged by the thousands in downtown Montreal to celebrate with their Gray Cup champions on Wednesday.
The coaches carrying the players drove for about an hour on De Maisonneuve, from Crescent to Place des Festivals.
On the congested cow floor, a smell of dung – the SPVM mounted police followed the procession – and alcohol emanated from the procession. Above the heads of Montrealers, the Alouettes celebrated with the traditional paraphernalia of champions: ski goggles on their heads, beer cans in their hands, bare torsos or covered in their respective jerseys, with a gigantic bling necklace -bling on the neck of some of them.
We see a group of particularly colorful supporters, about ten meters away. We approach it cautiously through the crowd. It says “COUPE GRAY CUP” on our interlocutor’s sweater. Marc-Antoine Dequoy would be happy.
“It’s a Cinderella team,” rejoices Gerry Nadon to La Presse. That doesn’t make any sense. »
Gerry has been a fan since the 1970s. His jersey is from the 2008 Gray Cup, which the Alouettes lost to the Calgary Stampeders at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
Even through the lean years of the last decade, “we always supported them,” he says. “We supported them, but we didn’t have a lot of expectations. But this year, everything worked wonderfully. It’s like a Disney movie. »
A group of young men are carrying their barrels of beer. It’s not yet noon.
“It’s a party, let’s enjoy it! Alexis tells us, surrounded by his companions Antoine, Antoine, Mika and Nelson.
— Have you been a fan of the Alouettes for a long time?
— Yes, since we started playing football!
– Oh yes ? You play football ? For which team?
—We’re playing in Saint-Hyacinthe, we won the Bol d’Or! »
We therefore have before us proud representatives of the Laureates of the Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe. They won the second division of college football title last Saturday in Trois-Rivières.
“It’s the celebration that continues! », says Alexis before continuing his journey not far from the equally celebrating vehicles of the Sparrows.
A construction worker, in his crane, greets the players at their height. Restaurant employees go out onto their terraces and photograph the scene. Someone, somewhere, is playing Cowboys Fringants on my shoulder.
The Alouettes and their fans have worked hard for “ten years and dust”. They “faced the winter wind.”
But “together”, on this Wednesday in November, they are no longer “afraid of anything”.
