Finally the stars had aligned and in 2012, the McMaster Marauders were going to be playing for the Vanier Cup in Toronto at the Rogers Centre. After watching them win the Greatest Game Ever on television last year, there was a good chance they would be there again this year.

After putting together a 21 game winning streak since week 3 of last season, it would be a re-match with Laval University. Before the Mitchell Bowl was over last week, Stam and I were making our plans for the Vanier Cup. During our years at Mac the best they did was a 4-3 in ’86 with a quick exit in the playoffs. This year they had the chance to repeat!

We started with dinner at khao san road, a thai restaurant on Adelaide Street West. For a restaurant that doesn’t even have a sign out front, it was a busy place. It opens for dinner at 5:00, they don’t take reservations, we arrived around 4:45pm and there were already 6 people ahead of us. They only seat complete parties and by 5:10pm the restaurant was filled.

We had seats in Section 217 on the 200 level. This was our view and unlike the CFL the play on the field is played live on the big screen. And all replays are played, controversial or not.

McMaster taking warm ups.

There was a record Vanier Cup crowd in attendance of 37,098.

It started out slow with a scoreless first quarter, after trailing 12-0 heading to the half, McMaster made it interesting with 2 late first half touchdowns to take the lead 14-12.

The second half was all Laval, their ground game was awesome and no match for Mac’s defence. In the end they outscored Mac 25-0 in the second half.

The final score was 37-14. There were a lot of disappointed McMaster fans leaving the Rogers Centre (early).