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Date | November 23, 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||
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Stadium | Olympic Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||
Location | Montreal | ||||||||||||||||||
Most Valuable Player | Henry Burris, QB (Stampeders) | ||||||||||||||||||
Most Valuable Canadian | Sandro DeAngelis, K (Stampeders) | ||||||||||||||||||
National anthem | Nikki Yanofsky with Royal 22e Régiment Band | ||||||||||||||||||
Coin toss | General Walt Natynczyk, Chief of the Defence Staff | ||||||||||||||||||
Referee | Jake Ireland | ||||||||||||||||||
Halftime show | Theory of a Deadman, Suzie McNeil, and Andrée Watters | ||||||||||||||||||
Attendance | 66,308 | ||||||||||||||||||
Broadcasters | |||||||||||||||||||
Network | English:TSN/TSN HD, Versus (U.S. station) French:RDS/RDS HD | ||||||||||||||||||
Announcers | (TSN): Chris Cuthbert, Glen Suitor, Dave Randorf, Jock Climie, Matt Dunigan, Chris Schultz (RDS): Denis Casavant, Pierre Vercheval, David Arsenault, Mike Sutherland | ||||||||||||||||||
Ratings | 3,654,000 in Canada | ||||||||||||||||||
The 96th Grey Cup was held in Montreal, Quebec at Olympic Stadium on November 23, 2008. The East Division champion Montreal Alouettes hosted the West Division champion Calgary Stampeders. The Stampeders won the game 22–14, with quarterback Henry Burris winning the MVP award. It was the first time Montreal had hosted the Grey Cup since 2001, the first time since the 2002 Grey Cup that the host city played for the Grey Cup, and the first time since the 58th Grey Cup in 1970 that the Alouettes and Stampeders had met for the national championship.[1] Hoping to break the record for highest attendance for a Grey Cup game, the organizers expanded Olympic Stadium to almost 70,000 seats. A crowd of 66,308 attended the game, failing to break the record of 68,318 set in 1977, but good enough to be the second-highest attended Grey Cup game of all time. Montreal has now played host to the four highest-attended Grey Cup games in history. It was the last time a Western-based team has won the Grey Cup in Eastern Canada until the Winnipeg Blue Bombers won the 108th Grey Cup against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton in 2021.[2]