{"id":280952,"date":"2025-11-13T19:01:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T19:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280952\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T19:01:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T19:01:29","slug":"davis-all-you-need-is-love-according-to-the-cfls-tight-knit-saskatchewan-roughriders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280952\/","title":{"rendered":"Davis: All you need is love, according to the CFL’s tight-knit Saskatchewan Roughriders"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Saskatchewan Roughriders<\/a> chase their fifth Grey Cup in franchise history, they\u2019re motivated by something much different than their predecessors:<\/p>\n

Love.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just love \u2019em up,\u201d head coach Corey Mace<\/a> said a couple days ago, repeating a common mantra as his team prepared for this year\u2019s CFL championship game against the Montreal Alouettes on Sunday inside Winnipeg\u2019s Princess Auto Stadium.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine that very first Riders championship squad in 1966, with rugged fullback George Reed and take-no-prisoners defensive lineman Ron Atchison, professing love for head coach Eagle Keys and their teammates. Reed was wont to say, \u201cEagle treated us like men, not like dogs,\u201d in apparent umbrage to former head coach Bob Shaw.<\/p>\n

As the generations changed and attitudes changed, the Roughriders won CFL championships in 1989, 2007 and 2013. There were celebratory postgame, affectionate shoutouts to beloved teammates, but there weren\u2019t any stories beforehand about Ray Elgaard, Reggie Hunt or Darian Durant motivating their squads with calls of, \u201cI love you, man!\u201d<\/p>\n

There has rarely been a squad so devoted to each other as the 2025 Riders.<\/p>\n

It started the opening day of this year\u2019s training camp, when offensive lineman Jermarcus Hardrick was asked to describe his team under second-year head coach Mace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year we\u2019re a little bit more familiar with each other,\u201d said Hardrick. \u201cWe love each other a little bit more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know how to push each other a little bit more. Last year was like, \u2018I don\u2019t know you as much; I don\u2019t want to step on your toes.\u2019 Now I know your kid\u2019s name, I know what you like to eat, I know your why. And all that stuff matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

It continued all season. The players hung out together, supported each other, never really got into trouble and always spoke about having each other\u2019s backs. Almost every interview with every player or coach included a \u201clove\u201d reference.<\/p>\n

Running back A.J. Ouellette, quarterback Trevor Harris and kicker Brett Lauther happily described the love inside their locker room, how it crossed from offence to defence to special teams and included absolutely everyone involved with the organization, from the ticket office to the training staff to the administration.<\/p>\n

It got repetitive. Maybe even corny. Except that they believed it so completely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a lot more comfortable with each other this year,\u201d said centre Logan Ferland, just before the Roughriders qualified for the Grey Cup by defeating the B.C. Lions 24-21 in the West final<\/a>. \u201cIt all comes from the chemistry we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cChemistry\u201d is another word for \u201clove,\u201d isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

As Ferland spoke, in the background and recorded on the same device, two other players were kibitzing about a teammate. Maybe it should be off the record, but their voices were unfamiliar and it fits this trope so perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was just giving me some love,\u201d said a player. \u201cI was laughing at him.\u201d<\/p>\n

They talk about it all the time! That doesn\u2019t mean love, respect and team chemistry automatically win championships.<\/p>\n

Like this year\u2019s squad, those other winning Riders teams had talented players who responded to their coaches. Reed and quarterback Ron Lancaster respected Keys.<\/p>\n

In 1989, the team was internally renamed \u201c89ers,\u201d at the insistence of head coach John Gregory, to wash away the 23 years between championships. The quarterback from that team, Kent Austin, returned as head coach in 2007 and told his players that anyone who didn\u2019t believe they were going to win a Grey Cup should leave immediately.<\/p>\n

The 2013 squad<\/a> was an odd mix of returnees and CFL veterans, put together by general manager Brendan Taman to win the Grey Cup at home. There were some internal spats under head coach Corey Chamblin. They loved winning and shared the credit with their \u201cbrothers,\u201d but the team that won Saskatchewan\u2019s last Grey Cup wouldn\u2019t be called a \u201cbig, happy family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not like the over-riding sentiment from Mace\u2019s troops. Along with general manager Jeremy O\u2019Day, plus his assistants Larry Dean, Kyle Carson, Paul Jones and Jordan Greenly, Mace said the intention was to bring in good players who are also good people. Now they\u2019re sharing the love, looking to share something else on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

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With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark leaderpost.com<\/a> and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here<\/a> to subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Saskatchewan Roughriders chase their fifth Grey Cup in franchise history, they\u2019re motivated by something much different…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,60449,127931,127929,68627,25358,127930,46243,13591,4400,82],"class_list":["post-280952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-corey-mace","tag-eagle-keys","tag-george-reed","tag-grey-cup","tag-head-coach","tag-jermarcus-hardrick","tag-mosaic-stadium","tag-offensive-lineman","tag-saskatchewan-roughriders","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280952","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=280952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}