Grey Cup

The Grey Cup (Coupe Grey) is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested between the winners of the CFL's East and West Divisional playoffs and is one of Canadian television's largest annual sporting events. The Toronto Argonauts have the most Grey Cup wins (18) since its introduction in 1909, while the Edmonton Elks (formerly the Edmonton Eskimos) have the most Grey Cup wins (11) since the merger in 1958. The latest, the 109th Grey Cup, took place in Regina, Saskatchewan on November 20, 2022, when the Toronto Argonauts defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 24–23. The Grey Cup game is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 4 million. Two awards are given for play in the game: the Most Valuable Player and the Dick Suderman Trophy as most valuable Canadian player. As a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Andrew Harris was the first player to win both the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Canadian and Most Valuable Player the same year, which he did in 2019. The trophy was commissioned in 1909 by The Earl Grey, then Canada's governor general, who originally hoped to donate it for the country's senior amateur hockey championship. After the Allan Cup was later donated for that purpose, Grey instead made his trophy available to the winner of the Canadian Dominion Football Championship, the national championship of Canadian football. The trophy has a silver chalice attached to a large base on which the names of all winning teams, players and executives are engraved. The Grey Cup has been broken on several occasions, stolen twice, and held for ransom. It survived a 1947 fire that destroyed numerous artifacts housed in the same building. The Grey Cup was first won by the Toronto Varsity Blues of the University of Toronto. Play was suspended from 1916 to 1918 due to the First World War and in 1919 due to a rules dispute.