As the smoke from the fireworks drifts away from McMahon Stadium after a Calgary Stampeders game, most of us are either on the way out of the building or already on Crowchild Trail or University Drive on the way home and hopefully thinking about having just watched another home team victory.
 
While some might stop for that nightcap or a late dinner on the way home, the security staff in the building does last-minute checks before McMahon is locked up for the night two hours after that final gun went off.
 
Hours later, though — at 5:30 in the morning — the cleanup starts and that’s today’s topic. It’s another of the little-known facts about this football club and its home stadium.

This week, I had a chat with Don Phelps who is the assistant stadium manager for the McMahon Stadium Society, the organization that runs the building.
 
He informed me that at precisely 5:30 a.m., a local contractor shows up with 50 or 60 part-time workers. And they attack the stadium with vigour, starting a sweeping process on the tops rows and working their way down. They also sweep their way through the concourse while cleaning the washrooms at the same time. Each is paid an hourly wage but gets a bonus too in Spolumbo’s sandwiches and drinks during the process.
 
They collect the recyclables and Phelps and his staff turn them in at a rate of about $4,000 a game, which is used for operating expenses.
 
Once the part-timers have finished their jobs, McMahon Stadium staff does a once-over with the back packing power-blowers and once that’s done, the building will be ready for another event. That will be about 3:30 in the afternoon.
 
A sidelight to this whole story is what football fans will lose during the game. The items are countless but there is one story that I’d like to relate. It wasn’t that long ago a man wearing a sheepish look on his face showed up early one morning to report that at the game the night before, he had lost his wedding ring. It seems he had broken his ring finger and had put the ring in his pocket for safekeeping purposes. Somehow he had dropped it and hoped it was at the game because it had sentimental value not to mention how upset his wife might have been had she found out.
 
It turns out that one of the staff had in fact found the ring and Phelps says the change in this man’s expression was difficult to describe. Phelps had the ring in hand and when he handed it to the fan, the guy looked like a kid on Christmas morning and the result was free Tim Hortons coffee and donuts for the whole staff.
 
Just another story of what it takes to operate a football club and its home building, but all behind the scenes.