Downtown Windsor will be lit up green and gold this weekend to celebrate a historic championship win by the St. Clair Saints Men's Football team.
The Saints welcomed the Okanagan Sun to Acumen Stadium Saturday night for the Canadian Junior Football League (CJFL) national championship game, where St. Clair claimed a 37-22 victory.
Starting on Thursday night until Sunday evening, various buildings in the downtown core will be illuminated.
The City of Windsor had installed string and globe lights along the sides of Ouellette Avenue between Chatham Street and Riverside Drive, which will now be green and gold.
Caesars Windsor is also getting into the spirit and will light up the casino to show their support to Saints Nation. And all of the college's campuses, including St. Clair College Centre for the Arts downtown, will be in the school's colours.
John Fairley, Vice President of College Communications & Community Relations at St. Clair College, says the celebration continues.
"Renaldo Agostino, one of the city councillors, was there and said 'you know what I'd like to do is we're going to light up the downtown' with new bulbs and the globes that they've started, so green and gold. And then all the sudden Caesars Windsor has stepped up, they're going to be lighting up their buildings in the colours of green and gold. And then of course we're going to be lighting up all of our campuses and our buildings in green and gold."
He says there is so much pride in all of the sports teams at the college.
"It's just a community spirit that you want to get to this level, in all aspects of being part of Saints Nation. And I think that our staff get it, our students get it, our student government have been engaged, our student athletic association obviously are also engaged just as much. I think it's not often that we have this kind of excitement."
Fairley says the college always tries to be a community supporter.
"To have that kind of turned around on us to a degree that they're standing with us, and lighting up the city for us, it doesn't always have to be a two-way street, but when it is, boy, we're happy about it."
It's been 25 years since the Canadian Bowl was won by a team from Ontario.
Over 2,500 people attended the game on November 9, when the Saints Football team became the first ever College team to win the CJFL National Championship.
