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Winnipeg to officially get 2015 Grey Cup Wednesday, according to media reports

andrew bucholtz

It looks like the 2015 Grey Cup will be headed to Winnipeg. Gary Lawless of The Winnipeg Free Pressreported Monday that CFL commissioner Mark Cohon will be in town Wednesday to make the official announcement, and Paul Friesen of The Winnipeg Sun received confirmation of the move from a CFL source. According to Lawless, the plan is to expand Investors Group Field from 33,422 to 40,000 seats for the Grey Cup, and then leave those seats in place so the NHL's Winnipeg Jets could host an outdoor game in early 2016:

After the Grey Cup is made official, the next step will be the official announcement of the NHL bringing its Heritage Classic outdoor game to Winnipeg in late February or early March of 2016.

The Jets have been told they will host an outdoor game and have told the NHL they want to play in 2016. An official announcement is expected this summer.

The plan is for the Bombers to erect temporary seating to boost capacity at IGF to 40,000 from 33,000 for the Banjo Bowl in the 2015 regular season and then keep those stands in place for the Grey Cup and then hand over the stadium to the NHL for the Heritage Classic.

It was initially expected that Winnipeg would get the 2014 Grey Cup following the construction of the Blue Bombers' new stadium (which opened at the start of last season), but that was given to B.C. instead in an unusual move. Part of the reason why may have been issues with the press box, which was left exposed to the open air, fine during summer games but problematic during the fall. The league told the Bombers last June that would have to be addressed before the stadium could host a Grey Cup. While the press box hasn't been enclosed yet, Friesen writes that work on that project is set to start this week:

But the facility also needs a significant renovation before it’s able to stage a Grey Cup. The press box was poorly designed, most of the media seating outdoors.

Early last season the Bombers announced a plan to make significant alterations during the season, but the project was postponed.

A team spokesman says that work will begin this week.

If the press box is fixed appropriately, this should work out well. Investors Group Field is a very impressive stadium, and once some of the early issues were ironed out, it worked well for the Bombers last year (if not for the media stuck trying to type outside in Winnipeg in November). Winnipeg should be a great venue for a Grey Cup, and it's an overdue one; the city hasn't hosted the championship game since 2006. Cold weather will be an issue, of course, as it often is in Grey Cup games, but that didn't wind up dampening spirits in Regina last November, and people in Winnipeg will likely be just as eager to participate in the CFL's marquee event regardless of the weather conditions.

Winnipeg's own team will have to get better quickly if they want to maintain the recent (2011-2013) streak of hometown winners, though. The Blue Bombers went a league-worst 3-15 last season and were just 6-12 in 2012. They also haven't won a Grey Cup since 1990. If they don't turn things around in a hurry, the Grey Cup may be coming to town, but it may not stay for long.