The Canadian Football League embraced Canada's bilingual nature at this year's Gray Cup, a move that did not go unnoticed by vocal critics.
Marc-Antoine Decoix, a proud French-speaking resident of Montreal, Quebec, ranted to the media at the 2023 Gray Cup when he and the Alouettes upset the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, ending a 13-year championship drought.
“You come here and they only speak English,” Dequa told RDS immediately after the game. “They never believed in us! But you know what, man? Keep your English, because we're taking the Cup. We'll take it back to Montreal, we'll take it back to Quebec, and we'll take it back home. Because we're the damn champions!”
The Gray Cup branding installed at Hamilton Stadium that year was exclusively English, which became the subject of criticism within a week. The league responded by adding two LCF logos to the field surface and replacing some of the electronic lettering with French, although Dequois was clearly still upset by the perceived snub.
Winnipeg's branding is fully bilingual this year, a change that began at last year's Gray Cup in Vancouver despite the Alouettes falling short. Dequa noticed this and is glad his native language is being celebrated by the CFL.
“(What I said at the 2023 Gray Cup) was genuine and if I look at it right now, the CFL community has done a great job because it's 50-50 with the Coupe Gray (in Winnipeg this year),” Dequa said. 3DownNation on Wednesday. “You have to give credit where credit is due, and I give it credit. They handled it well.”
The league also quietly changed its anthem policy ahead of the 2024 season, seemingly in response to criticism from the Gray Cup. The anthem must now be sung in English and French during a Montreal Alouettes or Ottawa Redblacks game, a change that Dequois noticed and deeply appreciated.
“It's great and I think it's a sign of respect. This is a bilingual country and it's just basic respect. I think there's something precious about having two languages and we should appreciate that,” he said. “That's what makes us different, and that's what we preach in Quebec – that we're different – so I think as a Canadian, it's in their culture, so we have to take care of those little details.”
With the language issue out of the way and settled, Dequa and his team can now focus solely on winning the Gray Cup – or perhaps le Coupe Gray – against the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Sunday.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders (13-6) and Montreal Alouettes (12-8) will meet in the 112th Gray Cup at Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg on Sunday, November 16, with kickoff scheduled for 6:00 pm EST.
The Alouettes defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the Eastern final by a score of 19-16.Bye The Roughriders came back to defeat the BC Lions in the Western final, 24-21.. The teams split their two regular-season meetings, although Montreal quarterback Davis Alexander missed both games with a hamstring injury.
The weather forecast for Winnipeg calls for a high of two degrees, sun and clouds. The game will be broadcast on TSN, CTV and RDS in Canada, CBS Sports Network in the US and CFL+ worldwide.
This is the fifth time the Gray Cup will be held in Winnipeg and the second time it will be held at Princess Auto Stadium. The stadium's first Gray Cup was held in 2015, when the Edmonton football team defeated the Ottawa Redblacks 26–20 and Michael Reilly was named the game's MVP.
