Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field

Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field is a sports stadium in Regina, Saskatchewan that is the home field of the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League; until 2005 it was also the site of University of Regina Rams and Regina Thunder of the Prairie Football Conference football teams. High school football is also played here.

	Capacity		28,800
	Opened		1927
	Owner		City of Regina

The stadium was built in 1927 as Park de Young and became home to the Roughriders that same year. In 1946 it was renamed Taylor Field. It is owned and managed by the city of Regina. The field currently has artificial turf and a seating capacity of 28,800. Renovations in 1975-76 increased the seating capacity by about 7,000 seats with the addition of an upper-level grandstand on one side of the field. In 2005, a new scoreboard was installed, which included the stadium’s first permanent giant replay screen.

Taylor Field was the site of the 83rd and 91st Grey Cup games. A temporary grandstand seating for an additional 20,000 spectators was added for each of these games. It has also played host to the field hockey competition at the 2005 Canada Games among other notable sporting events over the decades.

Currently, there are plans to renovate the stadium costing about CAD $13 million which could include new permanent seating at the endzones, possibly a closed roof and the already built jumbo-tron. The city is hoping that these renovations will help them achieve in getting the 2012 Grey Cup which will be the 100th Anniversary of the first championship game.

The stadium was named after Neil J. “Piffles” Taylor, a First World War fighter pilot and postwar lawyer who played and coached rugby and football in the city, and subsequently served as president of the Regina Roughriders(forerunner of the Saskatchewan Roughriders), the Canadian Rugby Union and the Western Interprovincial Football Union. A man of legendary toughness, Taylor lost an eye in action during the First World War, and spent more than a year in a German prisoner of war camp, but persisted in playing football in the 1920s. Roughrider folklore holds his artificial glass eye was once jolted out of its socket when he was tackled. All play stopped while players from both teams hunted for the missing eye. When found, Taylor cleaned it, then popped it back into its socket and resumed play.

On June 23, 2006, the Roughriders and The Mosaic Company announced a 10 year, $3.75 million naming rights deal that saw the facility renamed to Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field.

The stadium was the site of the three longest field goals in Canadian Football League history. Paul Watson tied the league record with a 59-yarder against Winnipeg July 12, 1981. Dave Ridgway hit a 60-yarder against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers September 6, 1987. That record was broken by Paul McCallum, who kicked a 62-yard field goal against the Edmonton Eskimos on October 27, 2001 in a 12-3 victory. Ridgway and Mark McLoughlin of the Calgary Stampeders have also kicked 58-yard field goals at Taylor Field.

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Saskatchewan Roughriders website
Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field wikipedia entry

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