O’Leary: Argos win ties Arbuckle and Dinwiddie together

Nick Arbuckle She was suddenly standing on the confetti-filled lawns of BC Place wearing every aspect of her public life.

His sweat-soaked uniform jumped out first as the lights of the TV cameras reflected from his face. He had a baby bag at his feet, his young daughters Aaliyah and Ariyah almost at his heels, and his wife Zakiyyah next to him. There was joy, pride, tears. The weight of the past week, and perhaps the weight of a football existence built on resilience no matter how much the game tries to undermine it, was borne out on an incredible, unthinkable night.

In these situations, you relive your life up to this moment in a matter of minutes.

111.GRAY CUP
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Arbuckle was named the MVP of the 111th Gray Cup, a young but traveling bench player who filled in for last year’s MOP-winning starter. He led the Toronto Argonauts to something that many outside the locker room considered improbable, if not impossible. This year he had completed 100 passes before entering the game. Chad Kelly To close out last week’s East Final. During his CFL career, he moved from Calgary to Toronto, to Ottawa, to Edmonton, then back to Ottawa and finally back to Toronto this year. She explained that her eldest daughter lived in seven houses in the four years of her life.

Arbuckle, an uncontracted free agent this year, said this week he was about a month away from making the transition from player to football coach before the Argos signed him on May 19. A pair of goals in the Gray Cup win pushes the Argos into the dynasty conversation, where they have pushed the Winnipeg Blue Bombers away.

“I don’t really think about what this means to me as much as what it means to my family,” Arbuckle told a growing circle of reporters Sunday night.

She watched her oldest daughter make friends in kindergarten. He and Zakiyyah became friends with other parents at the school. “We have a community. “We have one life,” he said.

Before last week, there was uncertainty about the future. Now?

“It killed me to think about having to dismantle them and move them again,” Arbuckle said. Maybe I won’t. Maybe my wife can keep her friends at school, and my daughter can keep her friends at school. If not and we do something else, we’ll do this. But it’s nice to feel like there’s so much hope for my family to move forward.

Arbuckle and his family celebrate the Argos’ Gray Cup win on the field at BC Place (Thomas Skrlj/CFL.ca)

That security may be based on his tight bond with head coach Ryan Dinwiddie.

Seventeen years ago, wearing Arbuckle’s cleats, Dinwiddie was thrust into the starting job for the Blue Bombers’ Gray Cup game. Dinwiddie and his teammates at the time said similar things in the week leading up to the game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The game doesn’t need to be more than it is, they have a defense that can go further and that’s winnable for them. When game time came, Dinwiddie threw three interceptions and was beaten.

Dinwiddie was an Arbuckle fan before Day 1, watching film of him at Georgia State and then teaching him the CFL game in Calgary when he was a quarterbacks coach. He lobbied the Argos’ organization to bring in Arbuckle in the middle of training camp this year.

“It was great to share that moment with him. I’m so happy he’s the Gray Cup champion quarterback. He deserves it,” Dinwiddie said. “He went through a long journey and was resilient. I think he was not put in a suitable position; I don’t think it’s in Ottawa or Edmonton. I just… trust him. I know he can win games for us.

“We have a great bond. He understands a lot about me and I understand a lot about him about what we want to do on the football field. We also know a lot about each other in terms of our character, who we are and what we stand for.”

“I think we were always connected,” Arbuckle said.

Arbuckle remembers the final five or six weeks of the 2016 season on the Stamps’ expanded practice squad; Dinwiddie was teaching him the ins and outs of the CFL game. It led him to deadlift in the weight room and work with d-linemen to improve short-throw pushes. He remembers going from Ottawa to Toronto in 2021, saying it felt like a midnight move, with brief stays with other teams damaging him before he felt reborn in Toronto this year.

“He had the opportunity to see a new me and a me that had been through the desert,” Arbuckle said.

“Just going through adversity, learning and growing as a person, changing as a person, having kids and having a family. He finally saw me, ready to embrace the moment and help this team win in any way possible.”

Seventeen years later, Dinwiddie relived (or had to, depending on your perspective) a hugely disappointing week through a quarterback with undying faith. Arbuckle did it. It wasn’t a perfect game, but it was enough to lift a group that had proven superior in all three phases. It’s an endorsement for both of them for a team that counted all year, drew the ire of fans at points and crossed the finish line in unimaginable fashion.

It is unimaginable, at least to those outside.

“It never occurred to us that there would be any other outcome,” Arbuckle said. “I think that goes for every player on the team. You saw the energy, the belief, the focus of every player. I don’t think there was any doubt in our building, from top to bottom, about what was going to happen here.”