![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mosaic-branding-800x600.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe Saskatchewan Roughriders and Mosaic have rewound 60-plus years to establish a new tradition.<\/p>\n
After every victory this season, a customized branding iron has been used to burn a single digit into a wooden beam that is conspicuous above the entrance to the \u201cBring \u2019Em Out\u201d tunnel at Mosaic Stadium.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fittingly, The Mosaic Company \u2014\u00a0which holds the 33,350-seat facility\u2019s naming rights \u2014\u00a0was a key part of the process that led to the acquisition and installation of a plank.<\/p>\n
The piece of wood was extracted from a well-used storage bin at Mosaic\u2019s K2 potash mine in Esterhazy. Lawrence Berthelet, Mosaic\u2019s Vice-President of Operations, said the plank was part of a storage bin that would have been installed in 1963 or 1964.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great way to make a connection,\u201d the Esterhazy-born potash executive said. \u201cIt\u2019s good for the Roughriders, it\u2019s good for us, and it\u2019s good for our communities.<\/p>\n
It is the product of a good idea by Jeremy O\u2019Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, \u2018Is there any kind of tradition that we want to start or something that we haven\u2019t done or something kind of cool?\u2019 \u201d the Roughriders\u2019 Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager said. \u201cOriginally, I thought it would be kind of cool to try to find a piece of lumber that has been in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou drive around the province and you see old barns. There are railroad ties all over the place. I thought it would be cool if we had something that was sitting out in the weather in Saskatchewan \u2014 something we could put up in the tunnel and have the players see or touch \u2026\u00a0something they always walk under.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Day ran the concept past Head Coach Corey Mace, who was instantly supportive, before raising the idea with President-CEO Craig Reynolds.<\/p>\n
Reynolds and O\u2019Day revisited the brainstorm during an off-season Board of Directors meeting that was hosted by 2021 Plaza of Honour inductee Paul Hill. The Executive Chairman of The Hill Companies was a long-time Board member.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul has this awesome piece of wood over his fireplace and I said, \u2018That\u2019s kind of what I want for the tunnel \u2014\u00a0something like that,\u201d O\u2019Day recalled. \u201cThat was my vision of it \u2014 a big piece of wood and hopefully it\u2019s weathered.\u201d<\/p>\n
Greg Yuel, a current Board member, overheard the conversation and filed it away. A few days later, Yuel reached out to Berthelet.<\/p>\n
\u201cLawrence replied and said, \u2018I\u2019ve got a beam that is from one of our storage bins,\u2019 \u201d O\u2019Day said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreg copied me on the next e-mail and said, \u2018It\u2019s time to bring Jeremy in. This one is his baby.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Berthelet was so intrigued by and invested in the idea that he sent pictures of the prospective plank to O\u2019Day, adding that \u201cit has seen a lot of potash over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
An in-person introduction took place in the spring, when O\u2019Day and Berthelet were both at a fundraiser that was held during training camp in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran into someone who said, \u2018Hey, Jeremy, we\u2019ve been trading e-mails. I\u2019m Lawrence from Mosaic,\u2019 \u201d O\u2019Day said. \u201cHe said, \u2018Just let me know. We\u2019ll have it sent up.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave him the address and when we came back from training camp, that piece of wood was sitting outside (Equipment Manager) Gordie Gilroy\u2019s room on a dolly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well \u2026 hello, dolly!<\/p>\n
The beam was soon scaled down to fit a spot above the tunnel. \u201cRider Nation\u201d was engraved into the wood.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came up with the idea that we were just going to brand it with a tick after every win,\u201d O\u2019Day said.<\/p>\n
Gilroy aided the process by enlisting a friend, the appropriately named Brandon Lang, to build a customized branding iron.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just needed somebody who knew how to weld,\u201d Gilroy explained. \u201cThey just welded a flat piece of iron on to one of those fireplace pokers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a piece of steel and at the end of it, there\u2019s just a mark. You just hold it on to the wood.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, a few trial runs were needed. Gilroy experimented by heating up the end of the branding iron with a blowtorch.<\/p>\n
Everything unfolded for real after a season-opening, 31-26 victory over the visiting Ottawa REDBLACKS on June 5.<\/p>\n
Running back Thomas Bertrand-Hudon was called upon to be the first brander after scoring two touchdowns in the Ottawa game.<\/p>\n
At first, the branding was supposed to take place after each home-field victory. The protocol was soon changed, however, and now a brand is added as soon as possible once the team reconvenes at Mosaic Stadium after a road win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny, because everyone\u2019s marks are at a different angle,\u201d Gilroy said. \u201cThat kind of makes it look better. They\u2019re all over the place. They\u2019re not lined up perfectly or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, in the larger context, everything worked out perfectly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a really cool tradition,\u201d Mace said, \u201cand I hope it lasts until the end of time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saskatchewan Roughriders and Mosaic have rewound 60-plus years to establish a new tradition. After every victory this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-259681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}