Grey Cup 113 Preview. Als v Elks: Late-Night Gridiron, Maple Leaves and One Last Look at the Old Field
By Chris Lawton
The pinnacle of the CFL season is upon us. Chris Lawton previews Sunday’s Grey Cup matchup between the Alouettes and Elks, including everything a first-time British viewer needs to know:
The Big One Arrives, At A Frankly Unreasonable Hour for the Brits
WHO'S READY FOR THIS SUNDAY⁉️ Watch the 113th #GreyCup on Sunday, November 15th at 6:00 PM ET on TSN, CTV, Crave, RDS, and CFL+. https://t.co/ks6PApsBuW
— CFL (@CFL) November 12, 2026
The 113th Grey Cup is this Sunday. It will see the Montreal Alouettes (14-4) face off against the Edmonton Elks (13-5) at McMahon Stadium in Calgary. It is the 12th time these two have met in the final, more than any other pairing in the game’s history, and Edmonton lead the series 8-3.
For us in the UK, the price of admission is sleep. Kick-off lands at 11pm on Sunday by the broadcast listings (the full timing wrangle is below), so the final whistle will arrive in the small hours and Monday morning is, in all practical terms, written off. Britain has a long and proud tradition of staying up far too late for North American sport and then telling colleagues it was only a bit of football. Fill a flask, locate the emergency Jaffa Cakes and consider yourself warned.
Here is what follows: UK times and viewing options; a celebration of Canadiana, because the Grey Cup deserves one; how three-down football differs from the NFL and college games; potted histories of both clubs, with the heaviest focus on the years since BT Sport first brought the CFL to British screens in June 2015; every previous Grey Cup between these two, with a proper look at the most recent; the road to Calgary; and whether this might be the last ‘pure’ Grey Cup before the 2027 changes arrive.
If you want the quarterback story first (and it is a cracker, with Cody Fajardo facing the club that traded him), our Alexander v Fajardo piece has you covered. For the rest, read on.
UK Fan's Guide: When To Stay Up, And What To Stay Up With
Plan for an 11pm kick-off on Sunday the 15th of November and have CFL+ ready, because the league is streaming the Grey Cup free to UK fans.
Where the time comes from | Kick-off given | UK time |
|---|---|---|
TSN and the CFL’s own countdown promotion | 6:00pm ET | 11:00pm Sunday |
Some Calgary ticketing and event listings, including the league’s May ticket release | 5:00pm local (Mountain) | Midnight, Sunday into Monday |
Both figures are in circulation and they sit an hour apart. The broadcast side says 6pm Eastern, which is 11pm for us now that both sides of the Atlantic are back on standard time. The ticketing side says 5pm in Calgary, which would make it midnight. I am planning on 11pm and keeping the biscuits in reserve for the midnight scenario. Check CFL+ before you set the alarm.
How to watch from the UK
- CFL+ is the route. It is the league’s own streaming service, free to join with an email address, and for UK fans it carries the whole 2026 regular season, the playoffs and, obviously most importantly of all now heading into Sunday, the Grey Cup. Each game stays available for 48 hours after it ends, so a Monday catch-up is possible if you can dodge the internet until then. Our season preview had the sign-up details.
- TSN, CTV, Crave and RDS carry the game in Canada. They are not for us, but they explain why the Canadian build-up seems to start roughly a week before kick-off.
- Looking back: the CFL arrived on UK television when BT Sport began showing it live on the 25th of June 2015, with Ottawa v Montreal kicking off at 12:30am UK time. The league’s own announcements list BT Sport as the UK home of the Grey Cup in 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021. From 2027, DAZN becomes the league’s official global broadcaster outside Canada and the US, and the league says the Grey Cup will reach around 200 countries.
Pregame
Before kick-off, James Barker Band close out the pre-game festivities with the Grey Cup Kickoff Show, and Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor play a special set. Sarah McLachlan sings the national anthem, followed by what is billed as the Snowbirds’ final flyover before the team’s retirement. American country singer Riley Green headlines the halftime show. Allow roughly three hours of game time, more if overtime intrudes. It has happened before, as the 2005 section below will remind you.
A Celebration Of Canadiana (Please Hold The Applause Until The Chinook Has Passed)
It is Grey Cup week and on Sunday the Montreal Alouettes and Edmonton Elks will play in the 113th Grey Cup! There are many interesting stories from our Grey Cup history, and I'm sharing those stories all week. https://t.co/zy4U0agYz3
— Craig Baird - Canadian History Ehx (@CraigBaird) November 13, 2026
The Grey Cup is the closest thing Canada has to a national holiday that happens to involve a football, and Calgary is treating it accordingly. The Grey Cup Festival took over Stampede Park from the 11th to the 14th of November, with concerts, team parties, a cheer showcase and, because this is Calgary, rodeo: bull riding, saddle bronc and wild pony racing. Tourism Calgary expects an economic boost of upwards of $50 million. It is, by design, a week-long party for a football match, followed on Monday by a nation quietly pretending it is not tired.
For British readers, there is a pleasing twist in the trophy itself. The Grey Cup was donated in 1909 by Governor General Earl Grey (yes, of that family, the one with the tea) and was reportedly bought for $48. It was originally meant for the amateur champions of Canada, and for its first years it was won by university sides. The CFL took possession of it in 1958, and the amateurs were locked out. So, the country’s biggest sporting prize began life as a gift from a British aristocrat, which is about as Commonwealth as it gets, and now it sits at the centre of the most Canadian weekend of the year. The cup, one imagines, is quietly pleased with the arrangement.
One area to keep an eye on is the weather, a subject on which Canadians and Britons can bond for hours. Calgary in November can be bitterly cold, and its Chinook winds can swing temperatures by 20°C in a few hours. The last time these two met in Calgary, in 1975, the game was played in temperatures of -10 to -15°C and finished 9-8 with no touchdowns. This week’s forecast, by contrast, has been in the region of 14°C, which for mid-November in Alberta is the sort of thing a Briton regards with suspicion. Nobody should be fooled into thinking the cold has been cancelled; McMahon is open-air, and the advice from the host city is to layer up under your jersey.
If you want a flavour of the venue’s past, our own Calgary Grey Cup history covers all five previous finals played there, from that frozen 9-8 to the infamous ‘too many men’ finish in 2009.
Three Downs, Twelve Players: How the CFL Differs From the NFL and US College ball
If you know the NFL or the NCAA game, the Canadian version is the same sport played on a bigger stage with a more open field and better special teams rules. Three downs to make ten yards instead of four is the headline, and it explains almost everything else: the passing, the punting on third down, the general sense that game situations can alter in the blink of an eye. There is a reason the league has used the tagline ‘no lead is safe’ for any years now.
CFL | NFL | NCAA | |
|---|---|---|---|
Downs to gain 10 yards | 3 | 4 | 4 |
Players per side | 12 | 11 | 11 |
Field, goal line to goal line | 110 yards by 65 wide (100 yards from 2027) | 100 yards by 53⅓ | 100 yards by 53⅓ |
End zone depth | 20 yards (15 from 2027) | 10 yards | 10 yards |
Goalposts | On the goal line (back of the end zone from 2027) | Back of the end zone | Back of the end zone |
Play clock | 35 seconds from the whistle (new for 2026) | 40 seconds | 40 seconds |
Pre-snap motion | Backs may move, including towards the line, and more than one at a time (the waggle) | One player, not towards the line | One player, not towards the line |
Single point (the rouge) | Yes, in modified form from 2026 | No | No |
Missed field goals and punts | Can be returned; no fair catch | Fair catch allowed | Fair catch allowed |
Canadian content | A minimum number of Canadian players must start | None | None |
A few of those deserve a word for new viewers.
The extra player and the extra width. Twelve a side on a field that is 12 yards wider than the American one means space, and space means pre-snap movement and receivers on a run. The wide field is why Canadian offences look like they are playing a different sport from the one your NFL-loving friends keep telling you about. Life for defensive backs is a lot tougher with all that extra space to police in the great white north.
The rouge. Kick the ball into the end zone and, if it is not run out, you can score a single point. It is a rugby relic, which makes it the most British thing in the game. One thing that looked faintly absurd was getting a point on a missed field goal, but those days are gone now. It has been trimmed for 2026 so that a missed field goal that goes wide no longer earns that point. I think the CFL powers that be didn’t like the look of a team winning a tied contest on a missed kick. I love the rouge and love to see them scored.
The Canadians. The CFL has a quota of Canadian players in the starting line-up, which is why Most Outstanding Canadian is its own award (this year it went to Montreal’s Tyson Philpot). Both starting quarterbacks on Sunday, Davis Alexander and Cody Fajardo, are undrafted Americans, which is the usual route for the position.
Where the NFL comes in. NFL fans will know the odd name. Warren Moon led Edmonton to five straight Grey Cups from 1978 to 1982 before a Hall of Fame career south of the border. In fact, he remains the only player in the Canadia Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Marv Levy and Bid Grant achieved the same recognition, but as coaches. The Canadian game has always been a proper league in its own right, not a stopover, and the Grey Cup is the proof.
Compared with the college game, the CFL is wider, faster to the point and, I would argue, more open to the odd moment of pure chaos. The Grey Cup itself, first presented in 1909, is older than the NFL. Whether it stays that way after 2027 is a question for the last section.
Montreal Alouettes: Eight Titles, Two Funerals And A Little Bit Of Yorkshire
“J’avais aucun doute qu’on serait de retour.” #Alouettes | @Videotron https://t.co/PvszcM6Ky7
— Alouettes de Montréal (@MTLAlouettes) November 12, 2026
The potted history, 1946 to 2014
The Als were founded in 1946 by Lew Hayman and partners and named after both the French-Canadian folk song Alouette and, according to the club’s own history, the RCAF’s No. 425 ‘Alouette’ Squadron, a bomber unit that operated out of North Africa and later Yorkshire. So there is a sliver of Yorkshire in the DNA of Quebec’s football team, which should please somebody.
The first title came in 1949, a 28-15 win over Calgary. The 1950s belonged to quarterback Sam Etcheverry and a dangerous passing game, but three straight Grey Cup final losses to Edmonton from 1954 to 1956 set the tone for what followed. A disastrous trade at the end of 1960 sent the franchise into a dismal decade. The 1970s were the glory years: Grey Cups in 1970, 1974 and 1977, the last of them the famous Ice Bowl at Olympic Stadium, played in front of a record crowd of more than 68,000.
Then it all fell apart. The original club collapsed in 1982, re-emerged as the Concordes (a name that offended the plane-making sponsor Bombardier, which stopped supporting them, as Concorde was a rival’s product), took the Alouettes name back in 1986 and then folded the day before the 1987 season. Montreal had no CFL team for nine years.
The return came in 1996, courtesy of the Baltimore Stallions, the only American-based team to win a Grey Cup (1995, 37-20 over Calgary in Regina). The league counts the Alouettes’ history as continuous from 1946 and does not count the Stallions’ as theirs, which is a very CFL way of doing the paperwork. The revived club nearly died again in front of cavernous Olympic Stadium crowds until a U2 concert clashed with a 1997 playoff game and pushed the match to Molson Stadium. It sold out, the team stayed, and to this day the Als play Sunday Bloody Sunday before home games as a thank-you. Anthony Calvillo then arrived and the 2000s were golden: Grey Cups in 2002, 2009 (the notorious ‘too many men’ finish against Saskatchewan) and 2010, with the franchise reaching all but three finals of the decade.
The BT Sport years, 2015 to now
If you started watching the CFL in the UK in June 2015, the Als were literally the first team you saw: the opening game on BT Sport was Ottawa v Montreal, at 12:30am. What followed for the Als was the least successful stretch of the modern era, and then one of its more remarkable recoveries.
Year | What happened |
|---|---|
2026 | 14-4, first in the East, unbeaten at home. Davis Alexander is Most Outstanding Player (5,257 yards, 35 TDs, 4 interceptions); Tyson Philpot is Most Outstanding Canadian with a franchise-record 124 catches. A 33-23 East Final win over Winnipeg books a third Grey Cup in four years. |
2025 | 10-8, but back to the Grey Cup. Alexander plays through a hamstring problem and throws three interceptions in a 25-17 loss to Saskatchewan in Winnipeg. |
2024 | First in the East, then a 30-28 East Final loss to Toronto. Alexander signs an extension in November; Cody Fajardo is traded to Edmonton in December. |
2023 | Under new owner Pierre Karl Péladeau and coach Jason Maas, a 11-7 team upsets Toronto 38-17 in the East Final and beats Winnipeg 28-24 in the Grey Cup, Fajardo hitting Philpot for the winner with 13 seconds left. |
2020 to 2022 | Ownership chaos continues: new owners Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern take over in January 2020, the season is cancelled by COVID, and by February 2023 the club is back in the league’s hands before Péladeau buys it in March. |
2019 | The CFL takes over the club in May. Khari Jones is promoted from interim coach, the Als go 10-8 and reach the playoffs for the first time since 2014, losing the East Semi-Final to a crossover Edmonton side. |
2015 to 2018 | Four consecutive losing seasons, the first missed playoffs since the team’s 1996 return, a 3-15 low in 2017 and a revolving door of coaches. In the five seasons after Calvillo retired, they won 30 and lost 60. |
The nice thing, for anyone who has watched the Als for the whole run, is how quickly the culture changed once the ownership settled. General manager Danny Maciocia (who, remember, won a Grey Cup as Edmonton’s head coach in 2005) built the roster, Maas coached it, and Alexander, who spent years as a backup and third-stringer, became the face of it. The Als are now seven straight playoff appearances deep. They have one title in that time, and they arrive in Calgary determined to double it. You can read how the 2023 triumph unfolded in our Grey Cup recap, Dynasty Denied By ‘Team Of Destiny’.
Edmonton Elks: A Dynasty, A Drought And A Concrete Castle
The journey brought us here. 🛣️ #GoElks https://t.co/FwSFfdSoJD
— Edmonton Elks (@GoElks) November 13, 2026
The potted history, 1949 to 2014
Edmonton’s football roots go back to the 1890s, but the current club began in 1949 as the Eskimos in the Western Interprovincial Football Union. They were soon a force, with quarterback Jackie Parker and running back Johnny Bright winning the Grey Cup three years running from 1954 to 1956. Every one of those finals was against Montreal. Then came a long wait: the next title did not arrive until 1975, and it came against Montreal too, a 9-8 win in Calgary that remains the last modern-era Grey Cup without a touchdown.
What followed was one of the great dynasties in North American sport. Under coach Hugh Campbell and with a mixture of Tom Wilkinson and Warren Moon at quarterback, Edmonton won five straight Grey Cups from 1978 to 1982, a record that still stands, and appeared in nine finals in ten years. Together with the Oilers, it earned the city the nickname ‘City of Champions’. Further titles came in 1987 and 1993, and then in 2003 and 2005 with Ricky Ray at quarterback, the second of those against Montreal in overtime. Edmonton also made the playoffs 34 years in a row, from 1972 to 2005, which is a North American professional sports record. When it finally ended in 2006, a ten-year Grey Cup drought followed.
The BT Sport years, 2015 to now
The first year of regular CFL on UK television ended with an Edmonton championship, which is the sort of coincidence you only appreciate in hindsight. Then came a long, strange decline and a very recent rebirth.
Year | What happened |
|---|---|
2026 | 13-5 and first in the West, after finishing fifth at 7-11 in 2025, the first time any team has gone from fifth to first. Cody Fajardo has a career year (4,788 yards, 25 TDs, 517 rushing yards), Justin Rankin runs for 1,170 yards, and kicker Vincent Blanchard sets a franchise record with 55 field goals. A 28-16 West Final win over BC in front of 40,182 books a first Grey Cup since 2015. |
2025 | 7-11 under new head coach Mark Kilam and general manager Ed Hervey. Fajardo, a trade acquisition from Montreal, takes the job after a 1-4 start. |
2024 | Community ownership, in place since 1949, ends midway through the season when fan Larry Thompson buys it outright. He dies in September 2025, and his estate now owns the club. |
2022 to 2024 | Chris Jones runs the team as GM and head coach. The long run of home defeats ends on 27 August 2023, a record 22 in a row stretching back to October 2019. |
2020 to 2021 | The Eskimos name is dropped in July 2020 after pressure from sponsors, supported by Inuit groups. The team plays as the Edmonton Football Team, becoming the Elks in June 2021 (a name briefly used by a 1922 club). |
2016 to 2019 | Jason Maas coaches the club for four seasons, with three playoff appearances, and is fired after 2019. The last playoff trip until this year is that 2019 crossover run. |
2015 | A 14-4 season ends with a 26-20 Grey Cup win over Ottawa in Winnipeg. Mike Reilly is MVP and Shamawd Chambers Most Valuable Canadian. It is the last Grey Cup under the Eskimos name. |
It is a story with a lot of dark patches. After that 2019 playoff, the Elks won 25 and lost 61 across five seasons, and the home losing streak became a North American professional sports record that eclipsed one held by the 1953 St. Louis Browns. This year they have turned the place back into what they call the Concrete Castle of the North, drawing the biggest crowd in the league for the West Final after years of being told to expect nothing. Before that game they had not played a playoff game in more than 2,500 days, or a home playoff game in more than 4,000.
The revival is the work of a short list of people. Kilam, who took the club from 7-11 to 13-5 in a single year, has put together the league’s best defence. Hervey has rebuilt the roster. Fajardo, a 34-year-old who has been cut and traded by about half the league, has made the offence hum. We covered the Elks’ siege-style West Final win in our Division Finals Quick Kicks.
History Lesson: Eleven Grey Cups, Eight Edmonton Wins And One Very Long Night In 2005
Edmonton lead the Grey Cup series 8-3, and the Eskimos won the first three Grey Cups in their history against this very opponent. Montreal have waited since 2002 for their latest win in the fixture, and since 2005 for their last meeting of any kind in the final.
Year | Grey Cup | Winner | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1954 | 42nd | Edmonton | 26-25 | Edmonton’s first title, by a single point |
1955 | 43rd | Edmonton | 34-19 | Played in Vancouver |
1956 | 44th | Edmonton | 50-27 | Played in Toronto; Edmonton complete a three-peat |
1974 | 62nd | Montreal | 20-7 | Soaked Empire Stadium in Vancouver |
1975 | 63rd | Edmonton | 9-8 | McMahon Stadium, -10 to -15°C, no touchdowns |
1977 | 65th | Montreal | 41-6 | The Ice Bowl at Olympic Stadium, with the famous staples-in-the-shoes tale |
1978 | 66th | Edmonton | 20-13 | Played in Toronto |
1979 | 67th | Edmonton | 17-9 | Played in Montreal |
2002 | 90th | Montreal | 25-16 | At Commonwealth Stadium, against Don Matthews’ former team |
2003 | 91st | Edmonton | 34-22 | Played in Regina |
2005 | 93rd | Edmonton | 38-35 (OT) | BC Place, Vancouver |
2026 | 113th | ? | ? | McMahon Stadium, Calgary |
The 1977 Ice Bowl is the most colourful chapter: a blizzard hit Montreal two days before the game, and the legend (this one appears in the official history) is that Montreal affixed staples to their shoes for better grip. Nobody has asked the equipment staff to open their kit bags this year, which is a relief.
The most recent meeting: 2005
The last time these two met in the Grey Cup, it was an all-timer. On the 27th of November 2005, in front of 59,157 at BC Place, Edmonton beat Montreal 38-35 in overtime. It was the first Grey Cup overtime in 44 years.
Edmonton led 10-1 at the break and looked comfortable. Then Montreal’s backup running back Éric Lapointe scored twice from a yard out in the third quarter, a Damon Duval field goal put the Als 18-13 ahead, and Edmonton’s Tony Tompkins responded with a 96-yard kickoff return touchdown, still the longest in Grey Cup history. Anthony Calvillo’s bootleg touchdown made it 25-20 Montreal. Then Edmonton’s Ricky Ray scored from the one and hit Jason Tucker for the two-point conversion to lead 28-25 with a minute to play. Duval kicked a 28-yard field goal as time expired and the game went to overtime at 28-28.
In the first period, Calvillo threw a 30-yard touchdown to Dave Stala and Ray answered with an 11-yard score to Tucker, tying it at 35-35. In the second, Sean Fleming kicked a 36-yard field goal for Edmonton. Montreal then needed a score and got chaos instead. Calvillo threw an illegal second forward pass after his first was knocked down, took a 13-yard sack, and, on third-and-33, scrambled and booted the ball forward to keep the game alive. Edmonton linebacker A.J. Gass recovered it. Ray, who completed 35 of 45 passes for 359 yards, was the game’s MVP.
The subplots still live in this year’s game. Danny Maciocia, now Montreal’s general manager, was Edmonton’s head coach that day. Jason Maas, now Montreal’s head coach, was on the Edmonton roster, and he won a Grey Cup there as a player in both 2003 and 2005.
The Road To Calgary
The road to the 113th #GreyCup is anything but ordinary. Go behind the scenes with the two teams battling for the ultimate prize in a three-episode original docuseries. Stay tuned for Episode 1 launching Friday. 👀 https://t.co/ZvR1aKAOmn
— CFL (@CFL) November 13, 2026
The two sides split the regular-season series, with the home team winning each time. In Week 3, Edmonton beat Montreal 32-29 in overtime, with Justin Rankin running for 179 yards and two touchdowns and Fajardo scoring the winner, which ended Alexander’s unbeaten start to his career. In Week 10, Montreal won 48-30 in Montreal, with Alexander throwing for 352 yards and four touchdowns, Philpot catching three of them and Tyler Snead adding five catches for 146 yards. Our write-ups are in the Week 3 and Week 10 Quick Kicks articles on the CFL pages of Touchdown Towers.
Montreal (14-4, East champions). The Als started 9-1, the only loss being that overtime defeat in Edmonton, and went unbeaten at home. In July, Alexander broke Darian Durant’s record for pass attempts without an interception, reaching 356 before his first pick. In the East Final they led Winnipeg 20-3, saw the Bombers claw back to 26-23, and survived when linebacker Tyrice Beverette stripped Zach Collaros in field-goal range. Alexander finished with 373 yards and two touchdowns, and Snead’s late touchdown catch sealed the 33-23 win. Winnipeg left as the last crossover team in league history, with the format changing in 2027. Our Division Finals Quick Kicks has the full account.
Edmonton (13-5, West champions). The Elks opened 6-1, then lost two in a row before clinching the West in Week 20 against Winnipeg. In the West Final they held BC to 16 points, with Darnell Sankey’s 11 tackles and two sacks for the Lions in vain. Fajardo completed 25 of 30 for 274 yards and added 84 rushing yards and a touchdown, Austin Mack caught a 23-yard score, and a Joel Dublanko strip led to a 62-yard fumble return by J.J. Ross that ended the Lions’ hopes.
Last year, for context. Montreal were here twelve months ago and lost 25-17 to Saskatchewan in Winnipeg. Alexander was carrying a hamstring injury, threw three interceptions and the Als lost the turnover battle 4-0, while Trevor Harris completed 23 of 27 for 302 yards to win MVP. Our 112th Grey Cup recap has the details. Alexander has spent 2026 answering that game, and Sunday is the final exam.
What To Watch, And A Prediction I Fully Expect To Regret
The Als opened as 3.5-point favourites. Here is where I think the game will be won.
- Alexander against the league’s best defence. Montreal’s quarterback had one of the most efficient passing seasons in CFL history: a 122.7 rating, 35 touchdowns and four interceptions. Edmonton, under Mark Kilam, have the stingiest defence in the league. Alexander’s postseason history is the one blemish: five interceptions across his 2025 playoff starts, before a clean East Final this year. If Edmonton force him into a repeat of last year’s scrambling, the game changes.
- Protection and pressure. Montreal’s line allowed 19 sacks all season, Edmonton’s 34. Fajardo can run and extend plays, but he cannot do much if Montreal’s front gets home first.
- Special teams, always special teams. Edmonton’s Vincent Blanchard led the league in field-goal accuracy at 93.2% with a franchise-record 55, and this is the last Grey Cup where kickers face the old distances. Montreal’s punt coverage, meanwhile, allowed Winnipeg’s Trey Vaval 237 return yards in the East Final, and Edmonton’s returners will have been watching the tape. If you remember 2005, you know where this is going.
- The ground game. Rankin ran for 1,170 yards and Fajardo for 517. Montreal’s defence has to account for both, and the Als will want to avoid being drawn into a slow, muddy contest of the 1975 variety. Calgary’s mild forecast should help them.
- Old friends. Fajardo, Austin Mack and Kaion Julien-Grant all won the 2023 title in Montreal, and now they line up against them. Head coach Jason Maas used to coach and play for Edmonton, and general manager Danny Maciocia coached them to the 2005 title. Everybody on the field and on the sideline knows everybody else.
My head says Montreal, narrowly: the better offence, the better receivers and a healthier quarterback than a year ago. Call it Alouettes 27, Elks 24. My heart is not entirely convinced, because the Elks’ story is the better one and a Grey Cup for a 34-year-old quarterback who has been moved on by so many clubs would be a very CFL sort of fairy tale. Edmonton also beat these same Als once already this year, and they have the added advantage of travelling about three hours down the road from home. I would not be at all surprised to be wrong, and that is rather the beauty of the Grey Cup.
For the full quarterback comparison, see Alexander v Fajardo.
The Last Pure Grey Cup?
Grey Cup arrives in Calgary for one last ride in a traditional-steeped era of Canadian football https://t.co/IOXRTCxu4n https://t.co/HKNeRUbxIS
— Toronto Sun (@TheTorontoSun) November 10, 2026
Sunday is the last Grey Cup that will be played on the old field, and that is why some fans are calling it the last ‘pure’ one. Next year’s game, the 114th, is set for Regina on 7 November 2027, the earliest Grey Cup ever, and it will be the first on a new field and under a new playoff format.
What is changing
A first wave of changes arrived this season: a 35-second play clock, benches on opposite sidelines and a reworked rouge, so that a missed field goal that goes wide no longer scores a point. TSN’s Dave Naylor noted last year that the 2025 final was the last Grey Cup that could be decided by a single point on a missed kick.
The big changes come in 2027:
- The field shrinks from 110 yards to 100 between the goal lines, still 65 yards wide.
- End zones shrink from 20 yards deep to 15.
- The goalposts move from the goal line to the back of the end zone.
- The playoffs expand to eight of the nine teams. The top two in each division meet in Division Showdowns, and the postseason adds a round, with the old division finals becoming Grey Cup Semi-Finals.
Commissioner Stewart Johnston says the aim is to trade field goals for touchdowns. The league projects 60 more touchdowns per season and a 10% rise in end-zone completions, and he has insisted this is not Americanisation.
The case for ‘last pure Grey Cup’
Opposition to the field change has been loud. An Angus Reid poll found two-thirds of avid fans opposed the shorter field, and around half of casual fans did too. BC quarterback Nathan Rourke was blunt in his criticism, and critics note that the move also removes one of the Canadian game’s unique plays, the returned missed field goal. Some worry it is a first step towards four downs, though nothing of the sort has been announced. After 135 years on 110 yards, a field that is 10 yards shorter looks to many like a step towards the American game, and the old posts on the goal line, which have made so many finishes unpredictable, will be gone. Our own open letter to the commissioner asked for the evidence behind the changes and a clear long-term vision, particularly on whether the eight-team playoff signals expansion beyond nine clubs.
The case against
The defenders have a few arguments. Three downs, twelve players, the wide field and the waggle all stay, and Saskatchewan linebacker Jameer Thurman has said the game’s core elements remain. The league’s slogan is tradition meeting innovation. And as a historian might point out, early Canadian football was played on 100-yard fields: the 1880 rules of the Canadian Rugby Football Union specified roughly that length. In that sense, 2027 could be as much a return as a revolution. The Grey Cup itself began as an amateur trophy donated by a British Governor General, and it has been reinvented more than once since.
My view
I set out my position in the open letter, so briefly. I am not against change, and I do not think a Grey Cup on a 100-yard field will be any less of a Grey Cup. My worry is how it is being done. The league has promised 60 extra touchdowns a season and a 10% rise in end-zone completions, but the research behind those numbers has not been shared, and fans who follow the league from thousands of miles away, as we do from the UK, would like to be treated as partners rather than recipients. The same goes for the eight-team playoff. With nine clubs it is hard to justify unless expansion is on the way (the Halifax and Quebec City rumours have been around long enough to deserve a straight answer), and a clear plan would turn a puzzling decision into a bold one.
So is Sunday the last pure Grey Cup? It is the last on the old field, and that matters. What makes the Canadian game its own thing, three downs, twelve players, the waggle and the wide field, is still standing. What I would like is for the league to tell us where it is heading next. Until it does, put the kettle on and enjoy the old goalposts while they last.
Until after the Grey Cup CFL fans!
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
