an emotional retirement announcement at Mosaic Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\nThere was a flashback to the start of October in 2016, when Picton caught two touchdown passes from his cousin, Noah, for the University of Regina Rams in the first sporting event of any description at a facility that soon became a second home.<\/p>\n
Noah was in the crowd at Winnipeg\u2019s Princess Auto Stadium on Nov. 16, 2025, when Mitch was part of a Saskatchewan team that registered a 25-17 Grey Cup victory over the Montreal Alouettes.<\/p>\n
The fifth championship-game win in franchise history nicely bookended the landmark game of 3,333 days earlier \u2014 a 37-29 Rams conquest of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies in a landmark test event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a ton of happy endings in this game,\u201d Picton said. \u201cNot many people get to walk away on their own terms. Most guys get cut, have a career-ending injury, or something like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I feel like I could have squeezed another year or two out of it? Probably, but I didn\u2019t want to be broken down and being put back together after potential injuries or things like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt did hold some weight to me to be able to walk out on my own terms, as a Grey Cup champion, and to be able to end my career as I see fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the (2025) season, I was definitely thinking about retirement. I knew that it was on the table. I\u2019m 30 years old now and you know it doesn\u2019t last forever.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, when we won, I was like, \u2018Yeah, it\u2019s that\u2019s about as good as I think it\u2019s going to get.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
The same can be said of Picton as a representative of the Roughriders.<\/p>\n
In addition to being an ultra-reliable player, he was an exemplary ambassador for the Saskatchewan Roughrider Foundation. He immersed himself in visits to schools to talk to students about the benefits of mental health (via the Win With Wellness program) and literacy (Rider Reading).<\/p>\n
Appropriately, the Foundation held a reception for Picton and his family after Friday\u2019s formal media conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly did give this team, this province, everything that I had,\u201d the former LeBoldus Golden Suns standout said. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of the things that we were able to achieve, personally and as a team.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout my time with the Riders, I wanted to be known as somebody who made a difference in the community. That was very important to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the help of the Foundation, they actually made it quite easy for us. If you were willing to go into the schools or go into the communities and have an impact, we certainly had the platform to do so. That\u2019s something I\u2019m very grateful for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Picton\u2019s Roughriders journey began long before he was selected by the team in the fifth round (37th overall) of the 2017 CFL Canadian Draft. He grew up going to games with members of his family.<\/p>\n
When the Roughriders won the 2013 Grey Cup Game at historic Mosaic Stadium, Picton was in the stands \u2014 selling 50\/50 tickets on behalf of the Rams. When the Green and White returned to the league final 12 years later, Picton was wearing No. 81 for a team that ultimately won it all.<\/p>\n
Between Grey Cup wins, Picton was a game-breaking receiver with the Rams \u2014 a First-Team U Sports All-Canadian in 2016 \u2014 and someone who caught 96 passes for 1,081 yards and six touchdowns in 64 CFL regular-season games.<\/p>\n
Fittingly, his jersey number and the final two digits of his career receiving-yardage total are identical.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say enough things about what he did for our organization,\u201d Vice-President of Football Operations and General Manager Jeremy O\u2019Day said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a guy who was constantly in the weight room. In our facility, (the Football Operations staff is) close to the weight room, so we kind of know who\u2019s in there and who\u2019s not. Mitch was in there all the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cMitch was very reliable, very dependable. He took great pride in being prepared. He\u2019s big and strong, he could block, he could play special teams, and he had great hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew every receiving position across the board \u2014 something that made him very valuable. You could put him at any position and he knew exactly what he was doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuarterbacks could always count on him. We always said that Mitch is a quarterback\u2019s best friend, because they always knew exactly where he was going to be at the right time, in the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n
He certainly found the right place to play professional football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly don\u2019t know if my career would have been as long as it was had I ended up somewhere else,\u201d Picton said. \u201cI went through the entire ranks of football in Saskatchewan, from when I was four or five years old and playing touch football at old Mosaic. I played RMF, flag football, high school football and university football in the city.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then to get drafted at home, which I didn\u2019t think was going to happen at the time, that was incredibly special for me. That\u2019s what Rider Nation is, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cOther teams, other organizations, don\u2019t get what we get from fans, from media, from facilities \u2026 everything. Encompassing everything, other organizations don\u2019t have it like we do, which makes it very special to play here.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother thing is my family being here. They were at all the games, win, lose or draw. After games, we were going to my parents\u2019 house. It didn\u2019t matter if we won or lost \u2026 if I played great or didn\u2019t play great. That\u2019s what we were doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I\u2019m 30 years old and my mom still makes my pre-game meals for home games.\u201d<\/p>\n
That line elicited a laugh from everyone in attendance in a packed media room \u2014 including Mitch\u2019s proud parents (Derek and Cheryl).<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my defence, I lived at home for my first five years on the team while my wife was finishing school in Saskatoon (at the University of Saskatchewan\u2019s College of Pharmacy and Nutrition),\u201d Mitch emphasized, \u201cso when I was living at home, my mom would cook the meals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen my wife, Kaylee, and I bought our house. It was our first game day at home and Kaylee\u2019s looking at me like, \u2018So, are we still going over to your parents\u2019 house for pre-game?\u2019 I said, \u2018I think we could probably work that out.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThose sorts of things are exactly why it was it was special to play here and what made it more meaningful to do this in Saskatchewan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitch Picton brought his football career to a close at a grand facility he helped to open in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-641891","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641891","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=641891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}