The cool story behind why Genie Bouchard was at the Argos game
Drew Edwards 3downnation.com October 5, 2017
So back in July, I wrote an exceedingly dumb post entitled: “
What the hell is Genie Bouchard doing at the Argos game?”
The article posed what I felt was a reasonable question – what brought Canadian tennis star Genie Bouchard to the Toronto Argonauts game? – in an unreasonable way. Readers felt the post was either a) insulting the CFL and the Argos b) insulting to Genie Bouchard or c) generally asinine. Many felt it was all three.
And they were right.
I’ve written over 1,700 posts for 3Down since its inception in May 2015 and while I’m not necessarily proud of all of them, the Bouchard piece is the only one I’d actually like to have back. Even if I’d taken a different tone – “Genie Bouchard is at the Argo game, isn’t that cool?” – everything would have been fine. Instead, I reached for the bottle of snark and spilled it all over myself.
(I didn’t take it down because nothing ever disappears on the internet so I just acknowledged my mistake in the comments section and took my well-deserved lumps. I’ve also stopped doing snarky posts anonymously.)
Still, the question lingered… how’d she end up at an early-season Argos game against the Ottawa Redblacks on a random Monday night? It felt like there was a story there, somewhere.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great Bouchard was at a CFL game, for all kinds of reasons – she’s got almost as many Twitter followers as the league and all nine teams combined – and as a local radio host pointed out, her social media accounts contain pics and posts from any number of sporting events. She’s an elite athlete and it’s hardly surprising she likes to watch other elite athletes do their thing.
(The only criticism that annoyed me, levelled by CFL communications staffer Paulo Senra, was that the post was sexist: I guarantee you I would have asked the same question if Federer or Nadal or El Shapo showed up. The Star did a story on the Maple Leafs’ Mitch Marner being an Argo fan and we also did one on Dart Guy.)
Anyway, the mystery eventually got solved thanks to an anonymous tipster and a little journalistic elbow grease and the answer is both boring and somehow intriguing:
Greg Ellingson left her tickets.
The Ottawa Redblacks receiver was introduced to her through CFL kicker Chris Milo’s sister – they’re both from Montreal and apparently tight – when Ellingson and Milo played together in 2015 and 2016. Both Ellingson and Bouchard train in the same area of Florida during the winter as well.
Now sources that shall remain nameless insist that there is no “there” and the whole thing was just a friendly gesture on Ellingson’s part after realizing she’d be in town to do Rogers Cup publicity. Given how much trouble we got into for the first post, I think we’ll just stay away from any TMZ-style innuendo if that’s OK with everybody.
So there you have it: Genie Bouchard was at the Argo game because Greg Ellingson left her tickets.
Isn’t that cool?