Winnipeg Blue Bombers ended a 29-year drought by winning the 107th Grey Cup final Sunday night, beating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33-12 at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. Most current Bombers had yet to take a breath in 1990, when 26-year-old quarterback Tom Burgess last led Winnipeg to a Canadian Football League championship.

Much of the Bomber fan base also wasn't even born and has no memory of that night in Vancouver. Now however, they have very fresh memories of an unseasonably mild November night in Calgary, when the Blue Bombers homegrown running back Andrew Harris scored two touchdowns. The game where Kicker Justin Medlock kicked five field goals and the Bomber defence took the ball away from Hamilton's offence six times and sacked quarterback Dane Evans five times.

To the Winnipeg Football Club, this victory is not just a validation. It is a cause for celebration and form of closure to to alleviate decades of frustration. A win seemed a statistical improbability. No one really expected to actually win. The football league with only eight or nine teams for most of its recent existence, one comes to expect to excel at failure or to be cursed with exceptionally poor luck in order to wind up without a championship for nearly three decades.

The game didn't feel like a lock for Winnipeg until the final minutes. Pessimism is hard to overcome, especially after going so long without a Grey Cup win. It’s something that Winnipeg and all of Manitoba have to celebrate and brag about for quite some time.