Roughrider, Alouette superfans prep for Grey Cup

Lance Hackewich loves his Saskatchewan Roughriders -- and he's got a 75-year-old desiccated, positively inedible piece of history to prove it.

EDMONTON – Lance Hackewich loves his Saskatchewan Roughriders — and he’s got a 75-year-old desiccated, positively inedible piece of history to prove it.

It’s a loaf of bread from 1951.

It sits among other treasured mementoes in wall-to-wall glass case displays alongside old and new Roughrider jerseys, helmets, newspaper clippings, posters and footballs in Hackewich’s son’s old bedroom in Regina.

When the son moved out in 2019, the Rider Pride moved in, along with the bread to commemorate 1951, the year the Riders made it to the 39 Grey Cup. They ended up losing to the Ottawa Rough Riders.

“(It) looks like a large crouton now,” Hackewich said about the bread in an interview from what is known as “The Rider Room” on social media.

Don’t worry, it’s genuine.

“It’s still sitting in the box that I got it in. It’s got a label on it that proves what it is.”

Hackewich is among those Canadian Football League superfans planning their rituals, trips to the stadium and game-day menus ahead of Sunday’s battle for the Grey Cup between the Roughriders and Montreal Alouettes.