CALGARY - Referee Glenn Johnson, a 20-year CFL veteran, will make his ninth career Grey Cup appearance Sunday when the Montreal Alouettes take on the Saskatchewan Roughriders at McMahon Stadium.

Johnson, a Winnipeg native, last worked the '07 CFL title game. He and his father, Gord, are the only father-and-son team to ever officiate in the Grey Cup final. Gord Johnson spent 16 seasons in the CFL and worked in four Grey Cup contests.

Joining Johnson will be umpire Ben Major, head linesman Don Cousens, line judge Michel Pinsonneault, side judge Tom Vallesi, back judge Don Ellis, field judge Bryan Taylor and alternates Murray Clarke and Jocelyn Paul.

Major, Pinsonneault, Vallesi and Paul will be appearing in their first Grey Cup games. Johnson and his crew finished the season as the league's highest-rated unit.

Veteran Jake Ireland will be the replay official as the CFL uses its command centre for the first time in a Grey Cup after introducing the replay booth to start the '09 campaign. Ireland will work in his 16th Grey Cup game.

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DIEHARD ALS FAN: Standing out as a tiny patch of red, blue and white in a giant sea of green, John Holden of Calgary is proud to be a long-time fan of the Montreal Alouettes.

Holden, 47, grew up in Montreal but has called Calgary home for the past 15 years. He still has an overwhelming affection for the Als.

"Why an Alouette fan? Because they went through hardship, because I followed them since I was 15 years old and I stick with one team and I never give up on 'em," Holden said proudly as Calgary's Grey Cup Festival officially kicked off Wednesday.

"I don't see green - I see red, blue and white. This is great being the only Alouette fan down here."

Holden was surrounded literally by a sea of green Rider fans, a few diehard red and white clad Stampeder fans and those who weren't quite sure.

"I'm a Rider fan now - I got the mask on because I am a Stampeder fan and I was born and raised right here in Calgary so I'm incognito," chuckled Brian Watson, wearing a makeshift green and white hockey mask and a cowboy hat.

The overwhelming consensus in Calgary is in favour of the Riders.

"The team is from the West so we will be cheering for the Western team as hard as it is to actually say the Riders instead of the Stampeders. Nonetheless it is the Western-based team and we will be cheering them on Sunday afternoon," acknowledged Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier.

The mood wasn't lost on CFL commissioner Mark Cohon.

"Calgarians clearly wanted their home team to be here, but many people feel that the Riders are Canada's second team," Cohon said.

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SEX BEFORE GAME?: Ken Miller isn't about to stop a good thing. So if the Saskatchewan Roughriders players have engaged in pre-game sex during the season, he's more than willing to let them score off the field this week as they prepare to face the Montreal Alouettes in the Grey Cup.

"Well, you know we've played well recently here of late," Miller said when asked Wednesday about his views on the subject. "And so I'm going to ask them to be consistent."

Montreal head coach Marc Trestman, whose team is appearing in its second straight Grey Cup game, is taking a bit different approach.

"We're going to stay on task even though we're going to keep the same regiment we kept last year," he said. "That is to leave it up to our coaches to make that decision for themselves."

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GREY CUP MEANING: Between them, Montreal head coach Marc Trestman and Saskatchewan's Ken Miller have a combined four years of CFL head-coaching experience. But both are fully aware of what it means to be in the Grey Cup game.

"I became very emotional about it very early on, understanding what it means to the players not only on our team, but the players and coaches in the league," said Trestman, who became the Als' head coach last season despite no previous CFL coaching experience. "Also, the enormity of it and the importance of it became clear certainly in the first season."

Trestman has guided Montreal to consecutive Eastern Division titles in his two seasons on the sidelines with the CFL club, but is looking for his first CFL title.

Miller began his CFL coaching career in '02 as an assistant coach with Toronto, but said it wasn't until two years later, when the Argos faced B.C. in the Grey Cup game, that he began to appreciate the game's rich history in Canada. He earned a championship ring with that team as well as the '07 Riders, when he was the club's offensive co-ordinator.

"Before that, I was pretty naive about the Grey Cup and those sorts of things," he said. "But in 2004 and then again in 2007 having experienced and participated in the Grey Cup and to see what an impact it has on the team, what it has on an organization and really what it has on Saskatchewan and our province, I think really it is a cultural event for the entire country of Canada."

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FORMER TEAMMATES: Some prominent former university teammates will be facing each other in the Grey Cup game.

Montreal Alouettes running back Avon Coburne played four seasons (1999-2002) at West Virginia with Saskatchewan Roughriders defensive back Lance Frazier. And Riders defensive lineman John Chick played three years with Montreal cornerback Mark Estelle at Utah State (2002-2004).

Frazier says he and Cobourne will be battling in "the biggest game ever.

"He's definitely a talker - he'll do a lot of that," Frazier added with a laugh. "He's a scrappy guy.

"He plays a lot bigger than what he is. He's faced a lot of adversity of people telling him he's not good enough for so long and he's defeated the odds. Just to see him doing well and seeing him across from me in the biggest game of our lives is going to be enough motivation in itself."

Chick said Estelle was "a great teammate. He was older than me, so he was a guy I looked up to. I've seen him around a lot since then. I'm happy for him."

Another former Aggie in the game is Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo, who played at Utah State in 1992 and 1993.