{"id":701151,"date":"2026-05-29T08:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/701151\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T08:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T08:21:12","slug":"grey-cup-champions-saskatchewan-roughriders-start-season-on-a-bye-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/701151\/","title":{"rendered":"Grey Cup champions Saskatchewan Roughriders start season on a bye week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s quite rare that the defending <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/grey-cup\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Grey Cup<\/a> Champions open the season on a bye week, but that\u2019s exactly\u00a0the situation for the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/saskatchewan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Saskatchewan<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/roughriders\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Roughriders<\/a> this season.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>While the rest of the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/cfl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CFL<\/a> kicks off Week 1 action, the Riders will be forced to wait even longer to begin their title defence and players aren\u2019t too pleased with the schedule.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou would think that the champions would open up the first game you\u2019d like to see a rematch,\u201d said Riders wide receiver Kian Schaffer-Baker.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an odd spot for the reigning champs, especially with all the excitement around the team at a high following last year\u2019s Grey Cup run. As offensive lineman Logan Ferland tells Global News, the gap adds some intensity to the rest of camp and practice ahead.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/national.jpg\" alt=\"Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won&#8217;t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is what it is \u2014 schedule changes every year, right? So I don\u2019t like not playing for that long so that just means we really have to compete every single day in practice and treat every day like a game,\u201d Ferland said.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The unusual\u00a0schedule quark means Saskatchewan will go 21 days between games after wrapping up pre-season play, creating one of the largest gaps between a pre-season and regular season game in modern CFL history.<\/p>\n<p>While many aren\u2019t a fan of the Week 1 bye, players note there is some upside to the break, like defensive back Marcus Sayles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt gives us a chance to get our bodies back together and, you know, a lot of people get to go home to see their families and recharge their bodies and you know we\u2019re going to come back and we\u2019re going to be ready for our first game,\u201d Sayles said.<\/p>\n<p>The wait finally ends at Mosaic Stadium on June 13th, where the Riders will raise their championship banner before their home opener. For a fanbase still riding the high of a Grey Cup victory, the delayed start only builds anticipation for what should be an electric kickoff to the 2026 season.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s quite rare that the defending Grey Cup Champions open the season on a bye week, but that\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,68627,44,55574,24373,82],"class_list":["post-701151","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-grey-cup","tag-news","tag-roughriders","tag-saskatchewan","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701151","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=701151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}