OTTAWA—Dave was a big guy, real big. You knew his name was Dave because it stretched across the back of his personalized 30-year-old Calgary Stampeders jersey, under his wide-brimmed cowboy hat, perched atop his six-foot-eight, maybe 350-pound frame. He hugged a smaller big man, who wore an Edmonton jersey. He laughed with some guys wearing Winnipeg blue, and told a story about the 1991 Grey Cup, and Hells Angels delivering beer to the stadium. Where you from, he asked some guys without evident affiliation. Toronto, they said.

“I’m glad!” said Dave, with a big grin. “The Grey Cup is about everyone coming together, and I’m happy to see all 14 Argos fans here.”

Of the ways Canadians can feel superior to the colossal city of Toronto, the Canadian Football League is a good one. Yes, the Argos have more Grey Cups, 16, than anybody else. Yes, they can win a 17th on Sunday night, against the Calgary Stampeders.

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But if you show up in double blue, somebody will eventually rib you, gently or otherwise. Because in a season of renewal, the Argonauts couldn’t draw 14,000 fans a game, more than 5,000 fewer than any other team, and about half the numbers of the four Prairie towns. The biggest small town in the league. At least they’re in the Grey Cup, but how much can that help?

“It just reminds them who we are and what we do,” says offensive lineman Chris Van Zeyl. “I mean, a lot of times, especially with us and the city, we get kind of forgotten because there’s so many big, high-profile teams in the city. You know? So we get forgotten a little bit. It’s just what happens.”

“I mean, this city is so great and they love their sports so much,” says receiver DeVier Posey. “We just want you guys to love us.”

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It hasn’t been that way in a while, and nobody should expect a Grey Cup upset of a good Calgary team to be the thing that changes everything. It should be clear, after 40 years of sliding gently into relative obscurity, that there is no magic bullet to fix the Argos. New, stable, deep-pocketed ownership didn’t do it. A right-sized stadium surrounded by millions of potential customers didn’t do it. And a Grey Cup won’t do it.

“We’re not aiming for or hoping for or waiting for a silver bullet,” says team president Michael Copeland. “There was a feeling that that might be produced by BMO Field. There was a feeling the Grey Cup could be that. We don’t think of it that way. We think of it as another step in the right direction as a franchise. We’re sort of resetting what they see the Argos to be. And that’s really what we’re trying to achieve.”

Copeland had to endure some disappointment to get there. The Argos won the 2012 Grey Cup at home, threw a parade, drew thousands to the victory celebration. But then owner David Braley was barely keeping the lights on, and the team did nothing to build on that moment. He owned the team for three more years, culminating in last year’s parachuted-in Grey Cup, too soon after the last one. It ended in a blizzard of free tickets, and weighed down an organization that was already trying to dig out from the previous era.

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hat should be encouraging is that, this time, at least there are not prerequisites for failure in place. The way to envision the Argos and their future is that each of those things is a step on a long, long staircase. The Argos may have lost a reported $10 million this year, but having owners in Bell Communications and Larry Tanenbaum, who are not in danger of going bankrupt, is a big step. A stadium that requires only 20,000 or more to feel like a real football game, as opposed to the cavernous concrete of the Dome, was a big step.

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A team rebuilt by general manager Jim Popp and coach Marc Trestman has been a step. The crowd of 24,929 for the East final, the biggest the Argos have drawn in two years at BMO with only a little help from Saskatchewan fans, was a step. The fan surveys the team have conducted have been “overwhelmingly positive,” according to Copeland. But they have to get people in the building to enjoy the experience.

“We have proven that we can do it,” says CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie. “We just have to get consistent, and reach out to bigger communities … Of course, we have our stalwart CFL fans, but we can make an environment at BMO Field where everybody feels at home. And imagine, you welcome in a new generation of new Canadians. There’s nothing more Canadian than the Canadian Football League. And if we can make them feel warm and welcome, they become fans for a lifetime, and the next generation of their families and beyond. We just have to knock on doors.”

Ambrosie wants to find a more diverse audience for the league, and there’s no better place for that than Toronto. But many have tried to fix this franchise, and failed. They don’t need to fly; just to walk. The Argonauts are the city’s lost childhood toy, hoping to recapture enough attention to be loved again. Maybe it’s not impossible. But they will try, even if it is.

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