If Bobby Dubeau of Delta, B.C., executes his game plan to a tee, he’ll fly, eat, watch and cheer his way to a Guinness World Record on the afternoon of Sunday, July 9.
The BC Lions season ticket holder began his quest to complete a visit of all nine CFL stadiums in a record shortest timeframe on Thursday night at IG Field in Winnipeg when he arrived on site to watch the visiting Leos crush the hometown Blue Bombers 30-6.
Dubeau’s next stop will be Saturday at McMahon Stadium in Calgary to take in the Stampeders hosting the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Then he’ll complete the first leg of his journey on Sunday in Edmonton, where the Elks will try to win on their home turf at Commonwealth Stadium for the first time since Oct. 12, 2019, when they battle the defending Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts.
Dubeau will resume his tour of the CFL for the second set of games with a trip to Ottawa on Friday, June 30 for the Redblacks and Elks at TD Place. He’ll spend Canada Day in Montreal watching the Alouettes host Winnipeg at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium, and then wrap up the week with a visit to Toronto on Monday, July 3 when the Argos square off with B.C. at BMO Field.
That will set the stage for perhaps the most challenging segment of his world record attempt. It begins with the Thursday, July 6 game in Regina between the Roughriders and Edmonton at Mosaic Stadium. Two days later, Dubeau’s schedule calls for him to be at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton to watch the Tiger-Cats and Ottawa, then he completes his mission of visiting nine stadiums in 18 days by heading back home to Vancouver for the Lions and Montreal game on Sunday, July 9 at BC Place.
“It’s pretty exciting. I just want to make sure I make it to every game. It’s up to the airlines to get me back and forth, so hopefully it all goes well,” Dubeau said on Thursday night before completing another important pregame assignment: digging into one of those Blue Bomber “yard dogs.”
Dubeau says planes, trains and automobiles are all options if something goes awry with his flight schedule. And interestingly enough, the inspiration for taking a stab at this Guinness World Record was a result of being stranded in Montreal last year because of hurricane Fiona when Dubeau was trying to travel to Nova Scotia.
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“I caught an Alouettes game there, the Redblacks played the next day, and I thought, ‘Oh,’ and wondered if I could see all nine of them next year,” recalled Dubeau. “The schedule worked out pretty well where I could see them quickly this year. I applied to Guinness and they said, ‘Yeah, sure. Sounds like a good record; we’ll put it in our book. Let us know when you’re done.'”
Dubeau says a patient approach was also required.
“I had to submit the record and had to wait a very long time because I didn’t have a lot of money to get it reviewed quickly. I think I paid like 20 bucks. I could have paid $10,000 if I wanted to hear back in a week.”
Dubeau says it took four months for him to hear back from the Guinness people and part of the process will be providing witness statements to be signed and video to be taken two minutes of every hour.
“I got out of having an official timekeeper necessary because it’s over 18 days,” explained Dubeau. “But lots of documentation, lots of witnesses. I’ll just follow all their rules and then I can call myself a world record holder.”
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