ARGONAUTS.CA STAFF
Toronto – The Toronto Argonauts are preparing to defend their home turf for the first time in 2012 in a home pre-season game against the Montreal Alouettes this Tuesday, June 19 at a special student-friendly 12 noon kickoff at Rogers Centre. The fast-paced tempo of this year’s training camp launched the Double Blue into the win column last week on the strength of two Cory Boyd touchdowns. This week, close to 30,000 GTA students hope to see the Boys in Blue win again and carry an undefeated record into the regular season.
As part of an extraordinary year-end “Field Trip” to celebrate student success, this will be the largest student gathering ever for a sports event in downtown Toronto. An event of this magnitude has only been made possible through the trust the Argonauts’ powerful community programs have established with local schools and school boards for more than a decade. The Club has received overwhelming support from all levels of education as the Honorable Laurel C. Broten, Ontario Minister of Education, will perform the ceremonial coin toss, and the player tunnel will be lined with student committee members from the Argos’ 2012 Huddle Up Bullying Prevention Program, presented by Tim Hortons.
While the players work to defend their home field, the students will enjoy all the football action and learn how to Support, Report and Defend against bullying. Everyone at the game will receive a special bookmark imprinted with bullying prevention information, and the game itself will be full of anti-bullying and health and wellness messages for students. Lining the stadium concourse will be representatives from the Canadian Safe School Network, Kids Help Phone, GoodLife Kids Health Foundationand Bullying.org.
Halftime will feature 2012 Canadian Music Award winner for Best New Solo Group – Mainstream Radio, Neverest, followed by the 2012 Argos Cheeleaders, presented by the Toronto Sun, who will lead the entire stadium in stretches designed to show kids that physical activity can be fun! All of the students at the game will also participate in a pledge to eradicate bullying from their communities at halftime.
With the all of the excitement and educational programming, this week’s game has received an outpouring of interest from local networks that feature youth programming. In-stadium host Mark “Strizzzy” Strong is back for 2012 and, this week, he will co-host with Much Music’s T-ReXxX. Family Channel’s Lindsay Hamilton will share with the crowd her story about how she overcame bullying, and representatives from Teletoon will be present on the concourse. Also on hand will be War Amps Champ, Zoe, to record a special PSA that will be broadcast throughout the season to remind kids to PLAYSAFE!
To prepare students for the game, everyone is invited to visit a special Curriculum Kickoff page at argonauts.ca. While there, students and teachers will find fun, ministry-approved, football-themed questions and videos they can share in their classrooms. Don’t forget to visit the club’s YouTube page for kid-ready Football 101 videos with Argonauts veteran safety, Jordan Younger, or learn how to be a good fan with Jason the Mascot. Students should take notes carefully and hang on to their tickets to this game as they will be able to use it again for a special summertime Argos ticket promotion.
Following the game, all students will continue their field trip on the actual turf for See You on the Field, an Argonauts post-game tradition. Fans are then invited to join Argos players and Cheerleaders at the Official Post-Game Party at Shoeless Joe’s Sports Grill at 276 King Street West, for special food and drink deals!
