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Published Nov 10, 2025 • 3 minute read
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Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach Corey Mace (left) and offensive lineman Logan Ferland carry a team flag as they arrive in Winnipeg on Nov. 10, 2025. Photo by Thomas Skrlj /CFLArticle content
They weren’t turned away at the gate. In fact, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were greeted by a small gathering of fans and some friendly Winnipeg volunteers waiting with open arms inside the airport.
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The Blue Bombers’ most hated rival touched down for Grey Cup week on Monday, along with the Montreal Alouettes, who knocked the Bombers from the CFL playoffs.
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For Winnipeg fans looking for someone to pull for in the 112th Grey Cup, it’s like choosing between the last two ugly shirts in the closet.
“I would expect that we’re still the hated rival,” Riders head coach Corey Mace said. “But … I’ve got a sneaking suspicion there will be some green in the crowd, too.”
No doubt eastbound traffic on the TransCanada between Regina and Winnipeg will pick up as the week goes on, the humming of tires matched only by the exchange of cash as game tickets change hands.
Bomber fans shouldn’t need much persuading to unload theirs.
Saskatchewan quarterback Trevor Harris knows persuading them to pull for his team is a much more difficult ask.
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He did come up with one suggestion, though.
“I don’t know that they’d buy anything that I’d sell them. They don’t like the Green,” Harris began. “But shoot, keep it in the West, right?”
Anywhere else in the West, maybe. But Regina?
“It makes the event even more special,” Riders receiver Samuel Emilus said of playing for all the marbles in a place where fans want to throw them at you. “Obviously they don’t like us, we don’t like them. We have a chance to finish the job on their home turf, and that’s what we want to do.”
The only thing better for Emilus would be if the Bombers had reached the Grey Cup through the East, giving his team a chance to break their hearts at home.
The only thing worse for the Bombers this week would have been the Riders moving into their locker-room.
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Turns out it’s the Alouettes getting the home team’s room this year.
Truth be told, Winnipeg players hated the thought, no matter who it was going to be.
“I get that,” Montreal quarterback Davis Alexander said. “I wouldn’t like other people in our locker-room as well. I’m just excited to be in Winnipeg, excited to play in front of this passionate fan base, some of the most passionate fans across all the sports, not just the CFL.”
Alexander welcomes that passion aboard for next Sunday’s tilt.
“Obviously I’d love to have them on the Alouettes ship,” he said. “But that’s up to them. It’s our job to go out there and play entertaining football and put on a show for these guys.”
The Als are trying to win their second Grey Cup in three years, while the Riders haven’t even played in the game since 2013, when they beat Hamilton.
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“I think they should pull for us,” Montreal linebacker Geoffrey Cantin-Arku said. “They’ve been beefing with Saskatchewan for a very long time.”
The Als were plenty familiar with the Winnipeg airport, where they conducted Monday’s interviews. Seems almost every time they travelled to play a team in the CFL West, they stopped in at the ‘Peg.
“And we said our ninth trip to Winnipeg would be here,” head coach Jason Maas said. “And I’m happy that we’re all here.”
Maas had one last sales job for local fans torn about which team to root for.
“We care about each other,” Maas said, reading from Bomber coach Mike O’Shea’s play book. “We have a great culture, a great locker-room. Our guys love football. We have a great appreciation for our fan base in Quebec, but we’ve always said we love playing in big stadiums against great opponents. And when you come to Winnipeg you know you’re going to face a great team but also a great atmosphere that they create.
“If they’re looking to root for anybody, I hope they root for us … because of the way we play. I hope they respect that.”
The Riders could probably say the same thing.
Not that Bomber fans would listen.
Enjoy Grey Cup week, anyway.
paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca
X: @friesensunmedia
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