‘Unique direction’: Evraz Place CEO excited for Grey Cup 2020

Tim Reid was grinning and cheering with the rest of the crowd at Mosaic Stadium when the Saskatchewan Roughriders were announced as the host team for the 2020 Grey Cup on Thursday.

Reid is the president and CEO of the Regina Exhibition Association Limited, which is the body that runs Evraz Place.

He said after the announcement that he was feeling great and was excited about getting to be a part of what he called “one of the most unique directions in CFL history.” Reid was referring to the village idea, where all of the Grey Cup events will be able to be held in one location — at Evraz Place.

“There’s not a city in Canada that can do this and in many ways, I think, not only our stadium, but the assets across this campus will be the envy of many other cities across Canada,” said Reid.

There are some ideas floating around about how the event will come together.

“It’s great to put it on paper, but then once you come into the planning, you start involving new community members, a broader degree of leadership, and those ideas always get better,” said Reid.

Reid praised not only the Roughriders for the organization’s leadership in making the bid for the game, but also those who came before him at REAL.

“You have to recognize the board of directors of REAL from the past and the leadership well before me that gave me the privilege of getting to run these assets,” he said.

This isn’t the only big event coming up at Evraz Place. On New Year’s Day, it was announced the NHL’s Heritage Classic will be held in Regina in October.

Reid said very few places have the privilege of being able to announce two big events like that in the span of just a few months, and it will be a lot of work.

“But I think if we do this well, we’ll really showcase our community, our region, and our province to the rest of the globe and it’s only the start of great things to come,” he said.