Frozen and re-frozen by too many Alberta winters, the natural turf at Commonwealth Stadium will be yanked out next week from its roots by Edmonton city workers, to be replaced by artificial turf. The loss of the natural playing surface marks the end of an era for the Canadian Football League.
For 22 years, Commonwealth Stadium was the only venue offering real, speckled green to CFL players and fans. Edmonton's chilly climate could make play on it especially slick and treacherous: the field was described by one visiting player as being "like concrete with some grass on it." But many Edmonton Eskimos players and fans loved the surface, once they got used to it, and it did nothing to impair the performance of the team's most memorable stars, five-time Grey Cup-winning quarterback Warren Moon and fleet-of-foot kick returner Henry "Gizmo" Williams.
The decision by Edmonton's city council has a kind of bureaucratic logic. The new surface will require less water, no fertilizer, and will save the city around $80,000 a year. The Grey Cup can be hosted by the city this November without embarrassing slips and falls. Concerts can be held without a muddy mess to re-seed.
The sports world, however, is moving in the other direction. Today, the cleats of most Major League Baseball or National Football League players dig into real turf, not resins. Even at Toronto's BMO Field, a multi-purpose, city-owned stadium like Commonwealth, players with the Toronto FC soccer club managed to successfully petition for a change to natural grass from FieldTurf, the well-regarded artificial surface Edmonton is expected to adopt. Indeed, Edmonton may end up sacrificing the opportunity to host some international soccer matches because it will no longer offer the natural surface top teams demand.
In one important respect, Commonwealth Stadium will now be like every other CFL stadium in Canada. That may please a few visiting football players, but at a undoubted cost of a little of the stadium's character.