Hello, Davis Alexander’s hamstring.
A body part probably hasn’t been the focus of this much attention since Matt Dunigan’s shoulder at the ’91 Grey Cup.
Enjoy your time in the spotlight, hamstring.
Here are the Eastern and Western Final takeaways.
112th GREY CUP
» Walk-off field goal sends Montreal to 112th Grey Cup
» 3 stats that defined Montreal’s Eastern Final win over Hamilton
» Riders beat Lions to earn first Grey Cup appearance since 2013
» 3 stats that defined Saskatchewan’s Western Final win over BC
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO COOK A POT ROAST
It was an interesting decision that Saskatchewan head coach Corey Mace made with just under three minutes left to go in the Western Final.
Gotta say, I didn’t think it was the right call to kick a field goal on third-and-goal from the five and his team down by a touchdown.
But Mace trusted in his defence to get the ball back, and he trusted it again a minute later when the Riders faced a third-and-10 from their own 36, and just 1:48 on the clock.
When coach chose to punt, the booing at Mosaic Stadium was, erm, noticeable.
In the end, it’s all good for Mace and his team, showing once again that good strategy is the one that works, and bad is the one that doesn’t.
No matter how you cook that pot roast, it just needs to come out tasting great.
MORE THAN ONE WAY TO COOK A POT ROAST PART II
The Alouettes had NO problem celebrating with the Eastern Final trophy! #GreyCup pic.twitter.com/ZWsMubcCPI
— CFL (@CFL) November 8, 2025
The Montreal Alouettes lifted the Eastern Championship trophy, and they hooted and hollered.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders ignored the Western Championship trophy, with quarterback Trevor Harris even going so far as to run his hands over the space around it, without touching it.
If you’re the superstitious type, you go the Saskatchewan route, preferring not to “tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing” (thank you, Aaron Sorkin) by touching the trophy.
If you’re extra-superstitious (super-duperstitious?), you might wonder if Harris tempted the wrath of the whatever by comically snubbing the trophy.
If you’re not the superstitious type, the Alouettes are in the clear. And so are Harris and the Roughriders.
I happen to think big games are decided by one team scoring more points than the other on that particular day, and not by what they did or didn’t touch a week before.
BONUS TAKEAWAY: The Montreal Alouettes DID NOT touch the Eastern Championship trophy in 2023. One of their players can actually be heard yelling, “Don’t touch it.” So, yeah.
THAT’S KIND OF APPROPRIATE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT
When Tommy Nield made that stellar grab for the winning touchdown in the Western Final, an overview of the entire season of Roughrider football came into sharp focus.
The Riders ploughed to the top of the CFL’s overall standings during a season in which they just kept suffering injuries in their receiving corps, with back-ups stepping in and stepping up all year long.
27-year-old Nield was one of them. Signed as a free agent last off-season, he didn’t even suit up for the Roughriders until the middle of July and didn’t catch his first pass until Week 9, in August.
He ended the season with 42 receptions for 535 yards and five touchdowns, earning a roster spot for the Western Final.
And then indelibly stamped that game with one that goes out to all the understudies.
THOUGH HE BE BUT LITTLE HE IS FIERCE
Can’t coach tough 😤
🗓️: Eastern Final LIVE NOW
🇨🇦: TSN, CTV, TSN2, RDS
🌎: CFL+#GCPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/sCTWffZGCf
— CFL (@CFL) November 8, 2025
Tyler Snead, the All-CFL, 1,000-yard regular season pass-catcher for the Montreal Alouettes, found the end zone in the Eastern Final, but that touchdown reception wasn’t the most impressive thing he pulled off in the Eastern Final.
It was on another catch that the five-foot-eight, 170-pounder lifted me outta my chair.
Late in the second quarter, Snead caught a long ball over the middle, at the Hamilton 40-yard line and was immediately belted by a top-speed Stavros Katsantonis, one of the heaviest hitters in the entire league.
I mean, he was BELTED.
Not only did Snead somehow hang on to the ball, he jumped up almost immediately (can’t blame a guy for taking a second to do a self-check after a calamity like that) and took a few thundering tromps ahead in celebration, hollering as he went.
Making it all the more remarkable is that Snead didn’t think a hit was coming on the play, telling Joey Alfieri on the Alouettes post-game show that, “I actually had no idea. I thought I was gonna catch it, and I thought I had a lane to score.”
“Makes you feel a lot better when you hang onto it.”
UNSTOPPABLE? NOT ENTIRELY
If I had told you prior to the Finals that neither Montreal’s Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund nor BC’s Mathieu Betts would register a defensive stat in their respective games, what would you have said to me?
That is, however, precisely what happened. In the CFL’s ‘gamebook’ of stats sent out after each game, you will not see the names of either of two of the league’s most dominant defensive ends.
Shut out on the stats page, it’s not to say that either of them was at all ineffective in any way.
But it does show that both Saskatchewan and Hamilton did rock-solid jobs in neutralising those terrorising threats.
Can the Roughriders do it again on Grey Cup Sunday? Or will Adeyemi-Berglund get to blowing up Saskatchewan’s best-laid offensive plans?
AND FINALLY: Let’s all agree that we’ll talk about Destin Talbert more next season.