113th Grey Cup celebrates tradition, but also marks finale of several traditional CFL rules

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A particular CFL era sees a sendoff in Calgary with the 113th Grey Cup

This coming Sunday will see the 113th Grey Cup (6 p.m. Eastern, TSN/CTV/Crave/RDS in Canada, CBS Sports Network in the U.S., CFL+ internationally) take place in Calgary, between the East Division champion Montreal Alouettes and the West Division champion Edmonton Elks.* This is the championship game of the Canadian Football League, and it's the 12th Grey Cup clash between these franchises**, which comes with a lot of history; long-time Calgary CFL broadcaster Mark Stephen has a great breakdown of the past Grey Cup duels between these teams at his Substack.

This should be an excellent game, as the Alouettes (14-4) and Elks (13-5) were well clear of everyone else this season, with the league's next-best records being two teams at 10-8. And the city of Calgary has been pulling out all the stops for this with a great look back at some past Grey Cup traditions, including with a horse-drawn wagon taking the trophy to Metawa Armoury where members of the famed Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) regiment escorted it inside.

But there's some melancholy to the celebrations, too. That's because this will be the last CFL game before the big rule changes of shorter fields and moved uprights (impacting rouge situations) kick in next year. Todd Saelhof of The Calgary Herald explored that well in a column on the trophy's arrival, first with some quotes from CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston's speech at the armoury:

That's all very true. And the CFL is smart to celebrate that history and tradition, which remains a key selling point for the league. In an increasingly-globalized sports world, this is still a uniquely Canadian*** endeavor, and one with a great history. It makes sense for the CFL to tie itself to wider Canadian history as well, including that of the military (and especially with this year's Grey Cup marking the earliest the trophy has been contested in a calendar year, despite it still being on the third Sunday in November; that meant that the event fell in the same week as Nov. 11's Remembrance Day for the first time, and that will continue with next year's scheduling moves leading to an earlier season and a Nov. 7 Grey Cup). This is a Canadian sports league, and one that has long used that as a selling point in a hemisphere dominated by U.S.-based leagues.

That was true in Commissioner Johnston's State of the Union speech Friday as well. Here are some lines from Johnston via famed CFL writer Ed Tait, who now works for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers' website:

The uniqueness of the CFL and its history is perhaps especially true around the Grey Cup. That event is so much more than just a championship game. It's a week-long festival (dubbed "The Grand National Drunk" by sportswriter Dick Beddoes) with each team (plus the never-actually-played and still-undefeated Atlantic Schooners) hosting their own party with its own character, and with fans from across Canada and beyond coming together to see old friends and make new ones who also share a passion for this league.

A lot of the celebration's history is thanks to Calgary. Stampeders' fans really created the week-long party in 1948 (six years before the CFL's essential formation in 1954**, and a decade before its official formation in 1958). That year saw them travel by train to Toronto ahead of the title game, a journey they recreated ahead of the 100th Grey Cup in 2012. Here's more on that famed 1948 trip from Meghan Lett of The Scene Calgary:

As noted, that 1948 journey saw Stampeders' fans party throughout the city of Toronto. It also even saw them bring a horse into that famed Royal York Hotel against the wishes of the management. That's turned into its own tradition, which carried on this Thursday.

Everything around the horse in the hotel is so evocative of what the Grey Cup can mean for fans. I was fortunate enough to be on the scene for Yahoo in 2012 (a Grey Cup that turned into an even larger party than anticipated for the 100th when the matchup wound up as Calgary versus Toronto) when Stampeders' fans' plans to get a horse into the Royal York again were initially denied, leading to a cross-city tour, a social media uproar, and an eventual recantation that allowed Marty The Horse to enter the lobby. Oh, and while the initial link doesn't work these days, you can still read that final piece thanks to The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine: "Twitter backlash forces Royal York Hotel to reconsider anti-horse policy, let Marty in." (I'm still proud I got "anti-horse policy" into that headline.)

But that's just a small part of what the overall festival can be. From the pancake breakfasts to the late-night concerts to the team parties to events outside the official festival schedule, the "Grand National Drunk" is often an excuse to be boldly, loudly, and unashamedly Canadian, celebrating a unique league and a unique tradition. That's something that's perhaps even more important than normal in these times of rising trade tensions with the U.S. and "51st state" rhetoric, which has added extra political context and interest to sports moments, whether full clashes of international such as hockey's 4 Nations Face-Off or team-on-team such as the Toronto Blue Jays' run to the 2025 World Series. And the CFL has often leaned into that, as with their "Radically Canadian" marketing campaigns of the 1990s that produced the famed "Our Balls Are Bigger" line and many more risqué slogans:

Chris Creamer | SportsLogos.net @sportslogosnet In the late 1990s the @CFL launched its "Radically Canadian" marketing plan which included this t-shirt with the phrase "Our Balls Are Bigger" (all in lowercase because '90s + radical!!). This was, of course, in reference to the larger footballs the CFL uses compared to the NFL. 4:48 PM • Nov 24, 2021 19 Retweets 237 Likes Read 26 replies

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Here's a CFL commercial from that era, thanks to journalist Paul Woods (author of the great CFL books Bouncing Back and Year of the Rocket):

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The CFL hasn't been as over-the-top with its marketing since those days, but it's definitely maintained the Canadian focus of its messaging. From "This Is Our League" to "It Reflects Us All" to "Bring It In" to "Keep It Unreal," the league's Canadian history and distinctiveness have been key touchpoints. And that was absolutely shown this year with a marketing partnership that saw the league and apparel company Province of Canada launch limited-edition apparel for each team in conjunction with famed Canadian band The Tragically Hip:

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The Canadian identity and distinctiveness isn't necessarily going away following these major field and rule changes. As I noted in my piece ahead of last year's Grey Cup, even these changes aren't going as far as many proponents of Americanizing the game have lobbied for in the past. They're not altering the three downs or the "ratio" of Canadian/import players (now dubbed "national" and "international"), and there will still be a unique CFL product. Also, there have been many CFL (and CFL predecessors) rules changes over the years, and the league has always persisted, and it should do so here as well. However, it will be less unique in its rules than it was before, and the jury is very much out on if these changes will produce the improved offence the league expects and cites as their rationale here. And the jury is also out on what the fan appetite will be for a less-distinct CFL.

For now, though, the key thing is not the uncertainty about the future. It's about taking this opportunity of the 113th Grey Cup to celebrate where Canadian football has been and what it has done. And yes, it may lose some fans next year with shifts away from a 110-yard field and front-of-endzone goalposts; we'll see how that works out and how massive of a change it winds up being. But for now, there's a remarkable game coming up Sunday, one that would be notable in its own right. And it's perhaps gaining even more importance with its status as the last game under these current rules. It's the end of one CFL era, and that era is worth celebrating, regardless of where you stand on what the new era will be like.

*Interestingly enough, the last two Grey Cup matchups between these teams were in 2003 and 2005. Edmonton won both clashes (the latter in a thrilling 38-35 overtime game), and current Montreal head coach Jason Maas was their backup quarterback for both games.

**Of note, three of the 12 previous Montreal-Edmonton Grey Cup battles**** took place in 1954, 1955, and 1956, which predate the official 1958 formation of the CFL. However, they were in the since-1954 modern era of only professional teams from the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union and Western Rugby Football Union competing for the trophy, which is essentially the start of the CFL as we know it today; before 1954, amateur teams (especially, but not exclusively, university teams) also competed for the prize.

***It's worth a note here on my personal perspective: I'm a Canadian citizen, but one who's been living in the U.S. (as a permanent resident) since 2013. I don't have a personal CFL team thanks to my general belief on being a sports media neutral, but I do very much love the league (it's my favourite sports league to watch and follow) and want it to succeed, and I tend to believe that its best pathway to doing so is through emphasizing its Canadian distinctiveness. However, I try to provide fair coverage of what the league and its teams are doing and what their thinking might be, even in situations where I don't fully agree with their plans. The one thing where I will take a full stand is in using Canadian spellings wherever possible, as this is my site and I no longer have to bow to the grammarical dictates of American editors.

****Also of note, all of the Edmonton-Montreal Grey Cup clashes have generally been between these specific franchises*****, but this is the first one with the Elks team name. The Elks were known as the Eskimos from their 1949 founding through 2020, using "Edmonton Football Team" from that point until 2021, but it's been the same franchise the whole time, unlike the previous Edmonton football teams (including one "Esquimeaux," two "Eskimos," and one "Elks") from 1895-1939, which don't have their totals counted in the team's or CFL's records.

*****The Alouettes' history is somehow even more complicated than the Elks' history, necessitating another footnote. The linear, continuous franchise here was founded as the Baltimore CFL Colts/Football Club/CFLers/Stallions in 1994 in the league's U.S. expansion era, then moved to Montreal in 1996 and took the Alouettes' name. The league considers these Alouettes to have the history of the two separate previous teams named the Montreal Alouettes (1946-1981 before the bankruptcy of owner Nelson Skalbania, also known for his signing of a 17-year-old Wayne Gretzky to a remarkable contract with the WHA's Indianapolis Racers, and 1986-87 before owner Charles Bronfman folded the team one day before the regular season started), plus the Montreal Concordes (1982-1985, owned by Bronfman, essentially the continuation of the Alouettes, but renamed to avoid litigation with Skalbania).

However, while giving those earlier teams' histories to these Alouettes makes a lot of sense in terms of record books and cool historical moments to celebrate, it does come with the caveat that this isn't a linearly-continuous franchise. Indeed, the closest analogue is the NFL's Cleveland Browns, with the current linear franchise an expansion team from 1999, but with the team granted the history of the 1944-1995 AAFC and NFL Browns as part of the settlement that allowed owner Art Modell to move the team's assets and players to Baltimore (where they became the "expansion" Ravens). And that Modell move was what led to the Stallions (the only really successful CFL USA team, and one that appeared in the 1994 Grey Cup and won the 1995 Grey Cup) moving to Montreal to become the Alouettes, so everything comes full circle.