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Head-to-head CFL on CBC commentators Mark Lee and Chris Cuthbert breakdown the big game's combatants. Read The Numbers game: the 1-2-3 of the 91st Grey Cup Read The fans and the fanfare: Heroes, underdogs and last-minute shockers make the Grey Cup the most celebrated event in Canadian football. go to CBC's Archive Peacekeepers and pigskin: As it Happens talks to Canadian peacekeepers in Bosnia who will play their own football game in honour of the Grey Cup. Listen Grey Cup rivalry renewed Montreal and Edmonton clash for the ninth time. Read Small is beautiful John Avery may be small for the NFL, but he's put up some big numbers the CFL. Read Velcro hands Ben Cahoon's sticky hands have made him Anthony Calvillo's favourite target. Read

Edmonton or bust

EDMONTON -- Jack Rudd has had two hours sleep in two days, and his head isn't destined to meet his pillow in the near future.

With football fans streaming into windy Edmonton for the Grey Cup, Rudd is working non-stop to show them a good time. He is a senior member of the Spirit of Edmonton, one of many groups that have staged events in Edmonton for zealous football fans from across the country.

This week, Spirit of Edmonton is holding two breakfasts and four parties for almost 25,000 revellers, many of whom descended on the City of Champions waving flags and sporting jerseys bearing the logos of their favourite teams.

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"Fans come here for the festivities," says Rudd, who has been a CFL enthusiast since 1953, when he and his father sat glued to the radio for a Grey Cup broadcast. "They say, 'We have to go to this party and that event and, oh, by the way, there is a football game on Sunday.' This is Canada's national party."

Two blocks from the downtown hotel where Rudd is greeting guests, Corey Stewart walks through a mall with two friends. Stewart, who is wearing an Edmonton Eskimos jersey well past its prime, is clutching a mug he picked up at a Spirit of Edmonton breakfast. He and his friends have consumed a fair bit of alcohol this week and plan to consume a fair bit more before the Eskimos and Montreal Alouettes take the field on Sunday.

"The parties are the best part of the week," says Stewart, an Eskimos season ticket holder who will be attending his fifth Grey Cup game. "You meet people from all over the country."

Stewart, 31, has no problem with the thousands of football fans who have descended on his hometown this week - with the exception of a few from Winnipeg whom he met at local bar. "They were banging their mugs on a wooden table non-stop. They were way too loud," he adds with a grin. "Those bastards."

Orest Charko, 56, will also be attending the big game. Born in Saskatoon, Charko bought tickets in April hoping his beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders would be competing for the Cup. His wife agreed to join him when she learned Shania Twain would be performing at the main event.

The couple drove to Edmonton from their current home in Grand Prairie, Alta. on Thursday, but left their car with relatives before heading downtown. "We're going to party hardy," Charko explains. "There's no way I'll be able to drive."

A few blocks from the hotel where Charko is meeting friends, a church billboard reads: "Live a championship life. Go Esks Go!"

"The Grey Cup is really big in the West," Jack Rudd explains to an overwhelmed visitor from Ontario. "People here relate better to CFL players, who make relatively little money, than to other professional athletes.

"People in Toronto don't care about the CFL that much. Perhaps it's because there is too much to do in Toronto."

Despite the relative apathy of sports fans in Canada's biggest city, the Grey Cup is more than a mere sporting event, says Rudd. "Grey Cup festivities attract people from across the country. They do more for national unity than anything else."