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Greater than 40 Calgary Gray Cup Committee volunteers are getting a little bit of relaxation and leisure the subsequent few days earlier than they load up all the trimmings of time and head east to Regina for this yr’s Gray Cup.

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The Calgary Gray Cup Committee (CGCC) will begin the annual voyage on Thursday to affix the 2022 Gray Cup Pageant, with pancake breakfasts over the weekend and an look from the beloved Tuffy Nuff, Calgary’s equine consultant.

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Whereas COVID-19 put a little bit of a crimp within the normal enjoyable for the previous two years, committee member Sandy Dubyk stated it’s given the committee time to plan an epic celebration.

“We’re so excited to be again,” Dubyk stated. “The Gray Cup is Canada’s sport and it doesn’t matter what staff you’re representing, the competition itself is the household and the spirit of friendship and togetherness in celebration of Canada’s soccer sport.”

Since 1948, CGCC members have been travelling throughout the nation each fall to convey Calgary’s spirit of hospitality and western fanfare to Gray Cup celebrations. But it surely’s their hoofed neigh-bour that actually attracts the crowds.

Tuffy Nuff, this yr a black and white mare from Lionel’s Farm in Whitchurch-Stouffville, Ont., shall be making a shock look someplace in Regina within the days forward of the Gray Cup.

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Tuffy’s look annually, sometimes in an upscale resort within the host metropolis, has grow to be a much-anticipated a part of CGCC’s participation, and Dubyk stated the committee is trying ahead to creating this a particular yr.

“Whereas the precise time and placement of her look is beneath wraps till Thursday at midday, we’ll be planting some seeds that Tuffy is coming to city and able to horse round . . . It’s a part of the enjoyable, the thriller as to the place Tuffy shall be, so we’ll be giving clues and a few surprises alongside the way in which,” Dubyk stated.

The committee is internet hosting two pancake breakfasts, one Friday and one Saturday, in Regina’s Confederation Park from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Along with serving up 8,000 pancakes and 4,000 sausages, the committee will host Indigenous visitors and performers, in addition to Calgary band Excessive Steppin’ Daddy and cheer groups from the Stampeders, Tiger-Cats and Roughriders.

“It is a solution to take a few of that Calgary hospitality to different areas to share and clarify what Calgary is about,” Dudyk stated. “It’s all this stuff collectively together with that spirit — we’ll all in be in western put on and provides the large yahoos — that may make for a enjoyable time.”

ocondon@postmedia.com