The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n
THE GREEN ZONE: What was it like to hold the trophy in Winnipeg in 2025?<\/p>\n
CRAIG REYNOLDS: It was so special. and that\u2019s the only way to describe it. It was a special group this year. I was just so happy for our fans.<\/a> Just seeing the response in Winnipeg in the stadium, even when I went from the field to the locker room<\/a> there were still hundreds of fans just standing there, cheering and celebrating. I was just so happy for our fans. Obviously there are special moments with my kids. They were on the field. It took me a while to find my kids, but when I finally found them and was able to give them a hug, that was really, really special. Then just watching the guys celebrate and watching the players celebrate in the locker room, it\u2019s something I\u2019ll never forget.<\/p>\n I was impressed with how the Winnipeg fans received the Saskatchewan Roughriders winning the Grey Cup on their turf. I thought they were pretty gracious.<\/p>\n REYNOLDS: I felt the same. I thought they were great hosts throughout the entire week. I was actually surprised by the number of Bomber fans who said they were cheering for us and for the west. I thought it was pretty split in the stadium. Somebody asked me about that, and I said it was just loud. It was loud when we were on offence and it was loud when they were on offence. I thought they they were gracious as well.<\/p>\n Was it self assuring? Was it one of those moments where you\u2019re like, \u2018OK, we\u2019re doing it right?\u2019<\/p>\n REYNOLDS: I think it\u2019s validation that what Corey (Mace)<\/a> and Jeremy (O\u2019Day)<\/a> are doing with the culture they built is proving successful. I just looked at it from a team perspective, and we\u2019re doing the right things in the right way. Players want to be here, coaches want to coach here, and they want to commit to being in Saskatchewan. They see what we\u2019ve got going on here, so a bit of validation in terms of we\u2019re doing things the right way. The arrow is pointing up, and we\u2019re able to accomplish something that we\u2019ve only done four times in our history. That was only the fifth time, and we hadn\u2019t done it in 12 years. I was just so happy for everybody, the entire organization. We have so many people in our organization who have never experienced that, so they got to experience that. Just so happy for our fans to have to wait 12 years and then finally get to experience that moment.<\/p>\n The schedule came out<\/a> on Tuesday. The FIFA World Cup<\/a>\u00a0is affecting things. If there was one change you could make on the schedule, what would it be? <\/p>\n REYNOLDS: I\u2019ve been on record with the Thursday night challenges in Saskatchewan. I would probably trade a Thursday night for any other game. Growing up in Foam Lake, it\u2019s a challenge. We have so many fans who travel so far to our games, and it just is a challenge on Thursday night to make that trip.<\/p>\n Should the CFL season start with a Grey Cup rematch? Is it tough to have a bye week to start instead of celebrating the Grey Cup win<\/a>?<\/p>\n REYNOLDS: The multiple teams on the bye week is a product of the World Cup. We\u2019ve got two venues offline, so the schedule needs to be more loaded towards the back, so you put three teams on bye to start with to accommodate that. The reality is, in order to launch a schedule by December 9, you have to have your schedule finalized before Grey Cup. So the reality is, the schedule was pretty much final prior to Grey Cup. You can\u2019t just start changing one variable in a schedule this complicated. You almost have to redo the entire schedule, so you can\u2019t adjust in real time. So when the schedule was finalized, we didn\u2019t know who was going to be in the Grey Cup. We certainly didn\u2019t know we were going to be in it. We didn\u2019t know we were going to be Grey Cup champs.<\/p>\n The Toronto Argonauts appear to have reached out to Corey Mace<\/a>. That could be perceived as tampering. Did you pursue that with the league?<\/p>\n REYNOLDS: First and foremost, we\u2019re super happy with Corey\u2019s level of commitment to Saskatchewan. He is so committed to being here. He loves being in Saskatchewan. What I will say is we alerted the league that we didn\u2019t receive permission to talk to Corey Mace.<\/p>\n There is a new TV deal on the horizon for the Canadian Football League. How much is the board and the commissioner really looking at streaming and needing a streaming partner?<\/p>\n