A former Winnipegger’s attempt at achieving an unusual, football-themed world record could be complete by Saturday night — assuming everything goes according to plan.
Chris Tymofichuk is attempting to set the mark for catching CFL games at all nine stadiums in the shortest amount of time. The time to beat for the ambitious project — which kicked off in Winnipeg and is expected to end Saturday watching the Blue Bombers on the road in Toronto — is 364 hours.
So far, Tymofichuk told 680 CJOB’s The Start, he’s on track to complete the journey in 362.5 hours — barring any snags like Thursday’s incident in Montreal.
“For whatever reason, the car I was in decided to quit halfway on the highway between Ottawa and Montreal, and so we had to do the ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles,'” he said. “We used taxis, we rented a car, we battled Montreal traffic.
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“There was a moment where I thought this record attempt was coming to an end … but we got into the stadium and into the seat with 17 minutes to spare.
“We’re all good today, but it was a tough moment last night for sure.”
Under the Guinness World Records guidelines, Tymofichuk needs to provide video evidence he’s in attendance at each game for kickoff as well as the end — so if he’d arrived at Thursday’s Montreal Alouettes game even a minute late, the whole effort would be lost.
“The only things that can disrupt it now, knock on wood, may be a storm delay — and the weather looks good — or overtime extending 90 minutes.
“We all want a good game Saturday night, but let’s not do overtime.”
While the record attempt revolves around CFL fandom, travelling across the country is giving Tymofichuk a chance to support an important cause as well. He’s raising money in each city for cancer research.
“This is really taken on a life of its own and become so much bigger than the record itself,” he said.
“The record’s great if it happens, but the outpouring of support and the stories that people are coming up with, (talking about) their battle with cancer, have been really inspiring.”