Edmonton Elks’ Campus Clash proves to be a great student event

Here’s the lowdown on last Friday’s football event, from Towers to the Coliseum.

Last Friday, the Edmonton Elks played the BC Lions at the Commonwealth Stadium and offered students special pricing for tickets, food, and drinks for their Campus Clash event. The promotion brought students from MacEwan, U of A, and other post-secondary schools together for the game.

Before we get into the results of the game, I’d like to take you to the pre-party at Towers. There were a good amount of people at the bar. Enough to fill the space, but not enough to make traffic. Nothing too crazy happened — there were a couple of Edmonton Elks cheerleaders and the team’s mascot, Punter. The music was relaxed and comfy.

“The chants were filled with expletives (especially the F one) and cheers about how U of A sucks. “

While at Towers, I spoke with students Adam Bruno and DJ Perez who were responsible for a big game of UNO before the Elks game. They are a part of the UNO Club and have been hosting lots of UNO games on campus this year. When I asked them about the UNO game at the pre-party, they said they had games that included 15 people at four tables who were all strangers during the pre-party. They even played a game with the Griffins mascot, Griff. They’re big fans of the Elks and were looking forward to the game later that night.

At around 6:30 to 7 p.m., buses were supposed to arrive to pick up MacEwan students from Towers, but were 15 minutes late. The group that gathered outside began to get restless and started chanting “where is the bus?” which rang out loud, proud, and a little bit buzzed. Once the bus arrived, morale was hot and fiery. When students in the back of the bus started singing the American and Canadian anthem most of the bus joined in as well. Then the mood shifted a bit when the back of the bus started to hype up MacEwan. The chants were filled with expletives (especially the F one) and cheers about how U of A sucks.

We finally got to the game and everyone got comfy in the school sections. The game was exciting with the Elks starting off with usual Elks play, causing them to go down 7 to 21 early. (Yay…) Luckily the Elks decided to stay for a little bit and made it a good game before they blew their final chance. The final score was BC 37, EDM 29. Cheap beer and hot dogs made the student section very loud, probably louder than most games. 25,144 was the attendance, and the stadium filled 56,302.

I interviewed a worker at Commonwealth Stadium, Jessica, who worked at the Caesar Shack. She said the game has been more fun than normal, with more people wanting to talk. She thought it was probably due to the student section and the Elks being a little more competitive. She jokingly said that middle-aged people mostly just want to drink, especially on the weekends.

The Campus Clash part of the night had games and challenges for the competing schools which were U of A, MacEwan, and NAIT. It was pretty interesting with U of A dominating most of it with an early 3-0-0 lead against MacEwan and NAIT. MacEwan tried to come back midway through the third, leaving the scores at four for U of A, two for MacEwan and NAIT still had zero. U of A eventually pulled away at the end and the final scores for the Campus Clash were seven for U of A, three for MacEwan, and zero for NAIT. They didn’t seem too friendly at NAIT — I got no interviews with their students and hardly anyone was there representing them. At least we know who is the bottom school for sure.

I interviewed a couple of U of A students to get their feelings on the U of A and MacEwan rivalry. Two students from the U of A felt like there was no rivalry while another U of A student said that they were used to winning against other schools and that it was natural for them to beat other post-secondary schools.

Overall, it was a good night for the schools and the Elks. The event brought in more fans while also bringing everyone together — from the unusual pre-party to the student involvement at the game. All the people I talked to said that they were enjoying themselves and that they were having a good time.