How’s this for football’s opening act at BMO Field?

The Toronto Argonauts take on their bitter rival Hamilton Tiger-Cats with former Argos great Chad Owens in enemy colours.

The CFL unveiled its 2016 schedule Thursday, and it’s starting with a bang on June 23.

The 7:30 p.m. curtain-raiser on a Thursday night will be a historic event, marking the first CFL regular-season game at newly renovated BMO Field.

Owens will be making his regular-season debut as a Tiger-Cat, promising to fuel more hostility between these two arch-rivals as he goes against Ricky Ray, with whom he enjoyed a great connection for the last four seasons.

Owens won’t be the only player facing his old team.

Brian Bulcke will be lining up as a defensive tackle for Toronto after signing as a free agent earlier this month, and he will be trying to take down either Zack Collaros or Jeremiah Masoli at quarterback.

If that’s not enough emotion to build on, how about the fact that this will be a grudge match after the Tiger-Cats booted the Argos out of the East Division semifinal last November?

“It’s one of the greatest rivalries in sport, one of the biggest celebrations on the CFL calendar, and one of the most intriguing match-ups of the year, in one of our new signature venues,” CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge said in a statement.

This CFL headliner will also serve as a kind of 2016 Grey Cup preview in the sense that the Argos are planning an ambitious program to ramp up pre-game festivities for all home games this season, and they expect a full house of 26,000 to celebrate the occasion.

The Argonauts are all too happy to make a new start after being forced to play four “home” games away from the Rogers Centre last year because of conflicts with the Pan Am Games and the Blue Jays playoffs.

By the way, on June 23, the Blue Jays are off.

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The Argos won’t be the first team to play in BMO Field for 2016. Toronto FC’s soccer home opener is May 7 against FC Dallas.

After the Argos home opener, grounds crews will have more than a week to prepare the field for Toronto FC’s next home game July 2.

Hamilton and Toronto will play their Labour Day Classic game at Tim Hortons Field at 6:30 p.m.