Argos safety Matt Black hoists the Grey Cup after being the game’s unlikely hero. Cut from the team this past summer, he got back into the lineup to fill in for an injured player and made a key play in the game’s waning minutes.Nathan Denette/The Globe and Mail
As Canadian winter scenes go, it could have been lifted straight from the pages of Roch Carrier's classic children's tale, The Hockey Sweater.
Amid an early December snowstorm in the nation's capital, the Toronto Argonauts and Calgary Stampeders played a football game for the ages in the 105th Grey Cup. And while the vaunted Stampeders looked poised for redemption following last year's heartbreaking overtime loss to the Ottawa RedBlacks, that redemption ultimately went to a player who was cut from Toronto's roster in August.
Never lacking belief in himself though, veteran safety Matt Black took every opportunity that came his way, eventually finding his way back to the Argonauts when fellow safety Jermaine Gabriel was hurt. And the spotlight was all his as the final minutes of the Grey Cup ticked down, with Mr. Black picking off Calgary quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell's desperation heave into the end zone to seal the Argos victory.
For the Toronto native, gaining the opportunity to win his second Grey Cup in five years was as surprising as it was unlikely.
"I knew I could still play the game at a high level, it was just I definitely thought my time in Toronto was done," he says. "I thought that the organization had moved in a different direction, I had no hard feelings to it. Did I like it? No, but I understood it from a business standpoint, from a football standpoint."
The way that the game played out for Mr. Black and his teammates, with the Argonauts trailing for almost the entire 60 minutes, was just the icing on the cake for a season of soul-searching amid adversity.
"It's a roller-coaster whirlwind and to finish the year off with a Grey Cup win, when I sit back and I look at it, you can't write a better storybook year, not only for myself, but for the franchise in general," Mr. Black says.
In Canada's 150th year since Confederation, the safety adds that the game provided a great advertisement for the Canadian Football League in general, in the first Grey Cup to be held in Ottawa in 13 years. While the conditions were less than idyllic for the players, it created a great spectacle for those in the stands and watching on TV at home, complete with a memorable halftime performance by Canadian Shania Twain, who entered the stadium on a sled being pulled by huskies.
"I don't think you can get more quote-unquote Canadiana than that game," Mr. Black says. "This is the quintessential Canadian football game. If you were to go around the world and poll people about what a Canadian Football League game looked like, that's what they would say it looks like. Two teams, playing in a blizzard, the halftime performer coming out with sled dogs, I don't know what could be more quote-unquote Canadian than that 105th Grey Cup."
For Mr. Black's teammates, his ability to earn a second chance to stick with the Argos is simply a measure of the man he is. Chris Van Zeyl, an offensive tackle who has played with Mr. Black for the past nine years, says that despite the hurdles his teammate faced, he never let self-doubt creep up on him.
"He's one of those guys who, no matter what was going on, he kept his head up and kept a smile on his face," Mr. Van Zeyl says.
And while he missed Mr. Black's game-ending play, Mr. Van Zeyl says that those types of clutch performances are fully in keeping with the man's character.
"I honestly had no idea what was going on because I had my head in my hands, but when I heard it was Matt I wasn't surprised at all," he says.
Also a part of the 2012 Grey Cup-winning Argos team, Mr. Black says winning a first championship is always special, but this year's victory might just top it, more so because he was able to see the joy of winning for the first time on so many of his teammates' faces, as well as that of owner Larry Tanenbaum, who won his first championship in any sport.
"Right now this one is sweeter because of that aspect of being able to help people achieve something that they haven't achieved before and helping be a part of giving guys that belief of I can do whatever I set my mind to," Mr. Black says.
At 32, Mr. Black says he has no plans on retiring just yet, and though he will be a free agent come February, he has let both Argos general manager Jim Popp and head coach Marc Trestman know that he feels able to keep contributing on the field.
However, being released earlier in the year and realizing his football mortality has helped Mr. Black turn his attention to his ambitions once his playing days are behind him. Though he has spent time working with Manulife Bank in the past, he believes that football is his passion. Regardless of his playing future, he wants to continue to be involved in the game once his days of strapping on the pads are gone.
"I think it would be hard for me to completely leave football altogether," he says, "but I'd definitely love to transition into the front office, either with the Argos or with the league office in some way, shape or form, or at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment [which purchased the team last week]."
Ultimately though, Mr. Black knows more than most how football can provide defining moments, and he wants as many Canadians as possible to experience them.
"This game for me has a very special place in my heart and I think it has a very special place in a lot of Canadians' hearts and I just want to see Canada embrace this game for its uniqueness, for its beauty, for the talent that is out there on the field and I want to see it reach its full potential."