Brian and J shovel snow from the seats at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium on Friday in advance of Sunday's Grey Cup game between Montreal and Saskatchewan. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)

For four days, Brian and his friend "J" shovelled snow out of the stands at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, getting the place ready for the 98th Grey Cup on Sunday.

They were part of a crew that at its peak totalled 70 people, and really, that might not make for much of a story except for one thing.

Brian and J are homeless.

So was most of the crew — recruited out of the Bissell Centre, a local mission celebrating its centennial this year. The centre works with the disadvantaged of all ages.

Pedro Villota, who runs Bee Clean, a large Alberta building maintenance and janitorial service, hired the group when he realized a big dumping of snow one week back was going to be way more than they could handle themselves.

And he gave them a fair rate —$15 an hour, cash.

"It’s a hard job, very demanding on the body, on your back and everything, and you can't pay jobs like that cheaply," Vilotta says.

"You have to pay them what they’re worth, so we thought $15 an hour was a reasonable rate."

This was the second time he's hired through the Bissell Centre, the other being a playoff game about six years ago, and it went so well then that he went for it again.

"We've had a great turnout from the Bissell Centre — they supplied us with 66 to 70 people for the last four days," Vilotta says. "They've been excellent, they've been great, they have worked hard."

They have indeed — starting at the top of Commonwealth's second deck, shovelling snow out from the seats to the walkways and then down the long steps to the bottom where front-end loaders took it away.

Same drill on the lower level.

The job notice put up by the Bissell Centre asked for people with a shovel, and they came out in droves — all men but for about five women, and ranging in age from homeless youth to seniors.

With 62,000 seats and each seat having snow on it, plus a pile below, that's more than 100,000 piles.

"I think I carried that myself," said Brian. "Because it got warm yesterday, the snow is very packed down."

A couple of sections down, another couple of pairs were working away, almost finished with the upper deck.

"That’s a lot of snow," a reporter comments.

"Yesterday, I think I shovelled the same snowflake 36 times," says one of the hard workers.

Nice line.

"I used to be a writer on a newspaper."

That gives one pause.

Paying in cash, by the way, is an important point for the homeless, Brian said, because most of them don't use banks.

"Cash money … that's a big bonus," he added, having made about $500 for his hard work.

Brian and J live in a shelter where they are fed, get shelter when it's cold but have to leave each day between 6 and 6:30 a.m.

"And where are you going to go after that?"

For four days, at least, it was Commonwealth Stadium. Think of that when you look at all those seats on Sunday afternoon.