EDMONTON - Rick LeLacheur sounded like he was reading from the thesaurus Tuesday.
“Flabbergasted,” said the Edmonton Eskimos' CEO.
“Absolutely astonished.
“Blown away. Totally dumbfounded.
“It's just amazing. Overwhelming.
“I don't know if there's ever been a day like this in Grey Cup history. I really don't.”
In less than half a day Tuesday, on the first day of open sales to the general public here at home and from coast to coast, the Eskimos sold 13,500 Grey Cup tickets.
No franchise in league history ever sold 13,500 Grey Cup tickets in a half a day before.
In a single afternoon, Grey Cup ticket numbers went from a healthy 35,000 after season ticket sales to a ballistic 48,500.
Try it another way.
From 2 p.m. through to 6 p.m. the Eskimos sold about $2 million dollars in tickets. On June 1, they reached the $8 million mark in ticket sales.
There have been some great days in Eskimos history, but most of them have come at the end of November, not the first of June.
Tuesday was the opening of ticket sales to the general public at 2 p.m. Edmonton time to coincide with CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon's kickoff.
He told the assembled crowd at the Chamber of Commerce function that “I hope you hit 40,000 by the end of the day.”
Two hours later they'd sold 12,000 and hit 47,000.
“He's still on the plane. I'm just about to send him an e-mail. I think I'll start it 'Boy do I have a surprise for you!',” said LeLacheur three hours after putting him on the plane.
Last year's Grey Cup in Calgary was one of the earliest in history to achieve a sellout, the announcement coming at the Labour Day replay game here in mid-September.
The Grey Cup attendance last year was 46,020.
Edmonton had that beat on June 1.
“By 11:30 a.m. we had people sitting on lawn chairs in front of our office.
I don't know if anything like that has ever happened before,” said Eskimos marketing man Dave Jamieson.
LeLacheur said when the lineup hit about 100 fans outside their offices, the Eskimos felt they had to do something.
“We sent Patrick Kabongo out to entertain them,” he said of the massive Eskimos offensive lineman.
Ticketmaster not only reported the stunning sales totals but informed the Eskimos they'd sold tickets in every province in Canada, including Newfoundland, as well as New York, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maryland, Idaho, Montana and Maine.
“Over half the tickets sold were from out of town. That's fabulous for tourism and economic impact,” he said.
LeLacheur, co-chairman Doug Goss or anybody else involved isn't going to pretend they saw this coming.
“We thought we'd sell maybe three or four thousand, not four or five times that. None of the previous three Grey Cups we've held here had this many tickets sold by Labour Day,” said LeLacheur.
“In 1997, when Saskatchewan made it to the game, we weren't sold out until Wednesday or Thursday of Grey Cup week.”
The 1984 Grey Cup in Edmonton drew 60,081, the 1997 game ended up with 60,341 and the 2002 game saw 62,531 fans.
In other words the Eskimos sold roughly the same amount of tickets in half a day Tuesday as they have left to sell today.
“I have no idea how we'll do on Day 2. All I can tell you is tickets are still available,” LeLacheur said.
Could this Grey Cup be sold out before the start of the regular season?
The pre-season, even?
“I'd love to,” said LeLacheur. “The only thing more staggering than to do this would be to do that.”
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca
