The CFL team in Saskatchewan is called the Roughriders, and today that name refers to the rough hangover that they're going to have to ride out after Sunday night's victory celebrations. In a Grey Cup game that looked like it was going to be a comfortable win, then became very tight at the end, the boys in green and white held on to beat the Montreal Alouettes and win the 112th edition of the Canadian football championship.
If you are Canadian, you can feel free to skip this paragraph. The Roughriders play in Regina, Saskatchewan, which is roughly the midpoint between Calgary and Winnipeg. (Please tell me you at least know where Calgary and Winnipeg are.) The province doesn't have any NHL franchises, so the Roughriders are particularly known in the CFL for their passionate fanbase, though the team hadn't been to the Grey Cup since they'd won it in 2013. A fun fact about the Alouettes: You can just walk right into their stadium on a random morning in Montreal. They share it with McGill University, and it's situated in a particularly nice spot of the city for a stroll. The Alouettes have a lot of competition for attention, but they'd won the Grey Cup in 2023, and they'd beaten the Roughriders in the final in back-to-back years in 2009 and 2010. All of the nine CFL cities have made the Grey Cup at least 10 times, meaning any match-up you get is likely going to have some juicy history.
So the game. The scoring opened with a one-point rouge for Saskatchewan on a punt downed in the end zone (a poignant moment as the CFL Americanizes their sport). Then the Alouettes got the first touchdown when Shea Patterson—a "quarterback" you may remember from the Michigan Wolverines, whom Montreal exclusively uses for short-yardage rushing—punched the ball in on third-and-goal from the one. (The CFL is keeping the three-down system, for now.) It was 7–1 at the end of the first quarter, but then it got very smooth for the Roughriders. They scored three unanswered touchdowns and then a field goal as Montreal failed again and again to get anything going on offense. With the score 25–7, the Alouettes managed to grasp a shred of hope with a touchdown at the very end of the third, and after a quick RR punt they operated a slow, steady three-point drive to pull within eight rouges (or a TD and a two-point conversion), 25–17.
The Roughriders responded with a long pass into Montreal territory, but a 39-yard field goal went wide right with six-and-a-half minutes to play. The Alouettes would get a drive for the tie, and it was the drive that would break their hearts.
It started perfectly. Montreal got a first down pass, then an absolutely massive 51-yard completion on second-and-9 to bring them within striking distance of the end zone. A 13-yard run, then an eight-yard pass, meant that it was now Shea Patterson Time—second-and-2 on the three, just over three minutes remaining. Everyone knew what was going to happen, so a whole bunch of bodies scrunched together all along the line of scrimmage. Patterson took the snap, moved to his left, then bonked into one of his own blockers. The ball slipped out of his control and bounced onto the goal line, but Saskatchewan was the first team to dive on it. A possible game-tying eight points became zero.
The Roughriders couldn't drain all of the clock, and Montreal got it back in their own territory with under a minute to play. They hiccuped through a very disjointed advance to midfield, like a driver who doesn't know how to operate a stick-shift, then got their Hail Mary shot in the final seconds. It added some good extra suspense in the moment, but unless you're reading this blog back-to-front, you already know that Montreal's prayers went unanswered.
So it's a good day to be a Saskatchewanian, or to be the Ohio-raised MVP of the game, Roughriders QB Trevor Harris. As Ray already mentioned, the 39-year-old Harris has played football in practically every square mile or kilometer of the U.S. and Canada, but now he's a hero in Regina. He won't have to pay for a bison burger for the rest of his life.
