CFL 'Quick Kicks' 2026: Week 14

By Chris Lawton

Welcome to week fourteen of our weekly review of each week of the 2026 CFL season. ‘Quick Kicks’ brings you week-to-week news of how the games went, scores, surprises, and a general feel of ‘what we learned’ from the games.

If you’re reading this from the UK, the words “Labour Day Weekend” probably conjure up nothing more exciting than a bank holiday and the faint dread of wondering if you have got everything ready for the kids going back to school. In Canada it means something else entirely: Labour Day Weekend is the CFL’s grand old tradition of pure divisional needle, rivalry fixtures, and stadiums up and down the country selling out because, unlike most of the rest of the schedule, everybody actually knows exactly what these games mean. Montreal and BC kicked things off on Friday with the East’s best side nearly blowing it before rediscovering themselves; Monday (in Canada), meanwhile, served up a triple-header. To get that going, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg needed extra time to settle a genuine classic; Toronto ground out bragging rights and took home a trophy not too many quite remember exists at Hamilton, before Edmonton produced the most ludicrous comeback of the week in Calgary to shut the whole weekend down. Kettle on, there’s a biccy’s worth of catching up to do.

The first game of the weekend saw the East-leading Montreal Alouettes need a proper third-quarter jolt to see off the BC Lions 37-30 at Percival Molson Stadium on Friday night, ending the Leos’ five-game winning streak in the process and, rather more importantly for the home side, sealing a playoff spot before September was even a week old. It did not look for long stretches like it was going to be that straightforward. Davis Alexander opened the scoring on Montreal’s very first drive, but after that it turned into an ugly, mistake-strewn arm-wrestle, three straight goal-line stands from the BC defence setting the tone, and Sean Whyte kicking Montreal into a 12-7 lead off the back of little more than four Als two-and-outs in a row.

Then, with the sort of timing that makes Labour Day weekend what it is, Montreal simply flipped a switch. Jose Maltos Diaz kicked the Als back in front early in the third, rookie running back Liam Talbot punched in his first career CFL touchdown on just his second carry after Travis Theis went down injured, and linebacker Tyrice Beverette put the game to bed in spectacular fashion, picking off Nathan Rourke and returning it 57 yards for a touchdown to cap a 20-point third quarter. Tyler Snead had himself an afternoon too, adding a rushing score to his receiving one. Rourke was far from disgraced, going 31 of 45 for 375 yards and finding Jermaine Jackson for a fourth-quarter score that briefly made things interesting, but a curious decision to go for two rather than kick the extra point left BC needing more than they could find. The Alouettes move to 10-2 and 7-0 at home, while BC slip to 6-6 and now face the rather awkward prospect of hosting this same Montreal side again next week in the back end of the home-and-home, presumably hoping their toes stay attached to their feet this time round.

Player of the Game: Tyler Snead, WR, Montreal Alouettes. A touchdown through the air and a touchdown on the ground, part of a receiving corps that has now produced back-to-back 1,000-yard men for the first time since 2012. 7 catches, 69 yards, 1 receiving touchdown, 1 rushing touchdown.

The second game of the weekend was Labour Day Classic number sixty-one between Saskatchewan and Winnipeg, and it did not disappoint, with the Saskatchewan Roughriders needing overtime to see off the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 32-26 in front of a sold-out, record 34,352 at Mosaic Stadium on Sunday night. This is a fixture that has form for going the distance, this being the second time in four years it has needed extra football to settle, and Regina delivered an atmosphere by all accounts loud enough to turn a Bombers second-and-five into a second-and-ten more than once.

Tommy Stevens was the story of the night, punching in his thirteenth, fourteenth and, eventually, fifteenth rushing touchdowns of the season, the last of those coming on Saskatchewan’s opening overtime possession to snatch the win back after Winnipeg had forced extra time in the most dramatic fashion possible, Zach Collaros finding Dorian Singer with next to nothing left on the clock to tie it at the death. A missed two-point convert after Stevens’ winning score threatened to hand Winnipeg one last shot, but the Riders defence, having already produced a Derick Roberson safety and a pair of momentum-shifting sacks from Oladipo and Aubrey Miller Jr. earlier in the fourth quarter, stood up on third-and-six from their own 31 to finish the job. Trevor Harris was excellent throughout, 23 of 33 for 362 yards, with Dhel Duncan-Busby breaking out for a career-high 148 yards on ten catches, including the pass interference-aided grab that set up Stevens’ regulation go-ahead score. For Harris, those numbers meant he moved to 8th on the CFL all-time pass completions list, surpassing the little general, Sask legend, Ron Lancaster.  

Saskatchewan move to 8-4 and back to within a game of Edmonton at the top of the West, having now won this fixture in successive years, while Winnipeg fall to 6-6 with a rematch already on the calendar for next Saturday.

Player of the Game: Tommy Stevens, QB, Saskatchewan Roughriders. A hat-trick of rushing touchdowns, the last and most important of them coming in overtime to settle a genuine classic in front of a record Mosaic Stadium crowd. 3 rushing touchdowns, 15 on the season.

The third game of the weekend saw the Toronto Argonauts control matters from start to finish in a 37-22 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at a sold-out Hamilton Stadium, sweeping the season series and, with it, claiming the Harold Ballard Trophy for 2026. Chad Kelly threw three touchdowns, including a pretty finish to Damonte Coxie, who crossed 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in his career in the process, and Toronto’s defence chipped in a DaShaun Amos interception and a Benjie Franklin forced fumble and recovery to snuff out anything resembling a Hamilton fightback. Kurleigh Gittens Jr. dragged the Ticats back to within eight points late on, but a five-play answering drive finished off by a 21-yard David Ungerer III touchdown put it beyond doubt, Toronto moving to 6-6 and, crucially, four points clear of Hamilton, who slip to 4-9, in the scrap for second in the East.

Now, a quick word on that trophy, because it deserves one. The Harold Ballard Trophy, for the uninitiated, is awarded to whichever of Toronto or Hamilton wins the regular-season series between the two, and I suspect I could stop a hundred CFL fans in the street, including some fairly committed ones, and not many of them would be able to tell you who has it at any given moment, or indeed, for some, that it exists at all. It is, by some distance, the least celebrated piece of hardware the league hands out each year, quietly awarded and even more quietly forgotten about the moment it’s presented. Which feels like something of a missed opportunity, given the CFL has already shown, twice over now, that it knows exactly how to turn a divisional grudge match into an occasion, or make a game about a trophy with different teams contesting it. The Banjo Bowl gave the Winnipeg-Saskatchewan rivalry its own daft, brilliant identity and a guaranteed sellout every September, and the newer Stampede Bowl has done much the same for Calgary regardless of who they invite to cow town around Stampede time. Toronto and Hamilton, a rivalry with genuine history behind it and a Labour Day date already carved out on the calendar, would seem the obvious next candidate. Bury the Ballard Trophy, or at least give it a rest, and build a proper one-off spectacle, a Labour Day Trophy or similar, around the game that already exists. The ingredients are all there; somebody just needs to actually bake the cake.

Player of the Game: Chad Kelly, QB, Toronto Argonauts. Three touchdown passes and command of the game from the opening whistle, well apart from his mandatory interception thrown into coverage, including the one that finally sent Damonte Coxie past the 1,000-yard mark for the first time in his career. 319 passing yards, 3 touchdowns, 1 interception.

The final game of the weekend, and easily the most implausible, saw the Edmonton Elks claw back from 18 points down to beat the Calgary Stampeders 38-28 at McMahon Stadium on Monday evening, scoring 24 unanswered points inside the final ten minutes to complete a third straight win. For a franchise that spent large parts of recent seasons looking like also-rans, the Elks are suddenly making a habit of this; they did almost the same thing to Winnipeg from sixteen points back just a fortnight ago, and this one was arguably steeper still.

Calgary did almost everything right for the better part of three quarters. Vernon Adams Jr. found Jalen Philpot for a 39-yard touchdown after Cody Fajardo had been stripped by Clarence Hicks, recording his fourth sack in as many games, and Clark Barnes added a second Stampeders touchdown to push the lead out to 25-7. But Edmonton simply refused to go away. Fajardo found Austin Mack to cut into the deficit before the third quarter was out, and then the fourth quarter arrived, and the Elks turned into an entirely different team: ShunDerrick Powell rushed one in, Vincent Blanchard drilled a 52-yard field goal, and with just over four minutes to go, Justin Rankin, held to minus-one yard on his first four carries of the night, danced 50 yards to the house to give Edmonton their first lead of the entire game. Cole Snyder added an eighteen-second-left insurance score to make sure of it. Edmonton moved to 9-3 and stay top of the West, with a second instalment of this home-and-home to come in Edmonton on Saturday, while Calgary, who let an 18-point cushion evaporate in real time, dropped to 5-7.

Player of the Game: Justin Rankin, RB, Edmonton Elks. Went from minus-one yards on his opening carries to a 50-yard, game-changing touchdown that turned an 18-point deficit into an Edmonton lead with barely four minutes on the clock. Described post-game by his own quarterback as “the human joystick”, which feels about right. 5 catches for 48 yards and a score.

Standings

Interdivisional Standings 2026 this week: East Division 1, West Division 0.

Interdivisional Standings 2026 this season: East Division 10, West Division 18.

So that’s the Labour Day Weekend filed away, and the picture across the league is sharper for it. Montreal remain out on their own in the East at 10-2, with Toronto’s win at Hamilton at least giving the chasing pack something to build towards, four points now separating second from third with Hamilton’s cushion over the still-winless Ottawa the only thing keeping their season alive on paper. Out west, Edmonton’s habit of finding a way back from the dead has them still on top at 9-3, with Saskatchewan a game back at 8-4 after their overtime classic, and BC, Winnipeg and Calgary all bunched up behind them in what remains the most congested division in the league. Four games, three rivalry games, four different flavours of drama, and not a single one of them dull. That, in the end, is what the CFL and  Labour Day weekend is supposed to be about, even if one of the trophies handed out along the way could do with a rather louder send-off next time round.

Until next week, CFL friends!

CHRIS LAWTON

CFL ANALYST

Chris originally started following the NFL with the ‘first wave’ of fans when it was shown on Channel 4 in the 1980’s. He has been a keen supporter of the Miami Dolphins since 1983. Chris first encountered the CFL in 2016 and instantly fell in love with the Canadian game. He has been writing about the CFL 2017. Chris has a degree in history, postgraduate degree in librarianship and can be found on twitter as @CFLfanUK

Rated 5 out of 5