Eight years after it was last held in the Steel City, the Vanier Cup football game is returning this year to Hamilton.
Tim Hortons Field, the 24,000-seat home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League, will also be the site of the 2017 Vanier Cup game, Canadian Interuniversity Sport has announced.
This year’s game will be played Saturday, Nov. 26.
The first Vanier Cup game to be held outside Toronto was at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton in 2004, when a little more than 14,000 people watched Laval defeat Saskatchewan 7-1. The national championship game of Canadian university football was also held in Hamilton in 2005 and 2008.
The 2008 game was largely considered a disappointment, with an announced crowd of just under 14,000 for a game where Western was one of the participants. The last time Western was in a Vanier Cup game before that, more than 29,000 people were in attendance at SkyDome.
CIS also announced that Sportsnet will broadcast the next two Vanier Cup games.
This year’s national semifinals will send the Atlantic champion to the home of the Canada West champion for the Mitchell Bowl, while the Ontario champion will visit the Quebec champion in the Uteck Bowl on Saturday, Nov 19.