Ask any football player past or present, along with any coaching staff or that of the front office of any CFL franchise, and they will tell you that come time when a regular season schedule is unveiled, the Labour Day Classic is the first date that is circled on the team schedule.
It is not just any game. It’s a game where natural rivals meet for one of the most intense games during a CFL schedule. Throw team records out the window. You can have a team like the Hamilton Tiger-Cats sitting with a 2-9 record. Come Labour Day, they would love nothing more than to defeat their hated rivals the Toronto Argonauts.
Ask any player past or present who is experiencing a losing season, and they will tell you that winning on Labour Day, eases a lot of pain for the moment. Sometimes, the magic of winning a Labour Day Classic turns your season around and begins a lengthy win streak down the final stretch of the CFL season.
The Rivalry Begins
In the history of Canadian football, natural rivalries came to fruition in its inception. Take the Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) as an example, founded on Saturday, January 6th, 1883, it was the origins of what would later transition to the CFL that we know today. Many teams have come and gone and some are still present from a team’s bloodline either changing a team’s name as it is with any professional sports league. Teams like the Toronto Balmy Beach, the Sarnia Imperials, the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club, the Hamilton Rowing Club, the Hamilton Alerts, the Hamilton Tigers, the Ottawa Rough Riders, the Peterborough Quakers, the Kingston Granites, the Hamilton Flying Wildcats, the Toronto Argonauts, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen to name a few.
Out west, different variations of leagues and divisions were formed as was with the case of ORFU before the CFL as we know it today.
Teams like the St. John’s Rugby Football Club, the Osborne Rugby Football Club, and the Winnipeg Rugby Football Club from the Manitoba Rugby Football Union (MRFU), along with the Moose Jaw Tigers, the Regina Civil Service, and the Regina City Football Club from the Saskatchewan Rugby Football League (SRFL), followed by the Alberta Rugby Football League (ARFL) with teams like the Edmonton Rugby Football Club, the Calgary Canucks, and the Lethbridge Bulldogs,
In Quebec, it was the Quebec Rugby Football Union (QRFU) with the Montreal Football Club, the Britania Football Club, and McGill University.
The proximity of each team’s location made it an instant rivalry from the pre-CFL era.
Fast forward to the modern era in which the first Labour Day Classic was first played during the 1949 CFL season and included the Edmonton Eskimos vs. the Calgary Stampeders, the Saskatchewan Roughriders vs. the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and Ottawa Roughriders vs. the Montreal Alouettes. During the 1950 season, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats vs. the Toronto Argonauts was added to the Labour Day Classic as we know it today.
How the Fans Perceive the Labour Day Classic
Like other sports leagues that have a strong following, whether that would be the NFL, NHL, MLB, and the NBA respectively, the natural rival geographically is inevitable.
Ask anyone from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and there is no love lost between the three cities that dominate the sporting landscape in the American northeast.
Take your pick.
New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox, New York Islanders vs. the New York Rangers, New York Mets vs. the Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Flyers vs. the New York Rangers, the New York Islanders, and the Boston Bruins, the Philadelphia 76ers vs the New York Knicks, the New York Giants vs the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Jets vs. New England Patriots, the Boston Celtics vs. the Philadelphia 76ers and the New York Knicks. Mix and match any of these teams, and you now get the point.
Simply put, it gets fans’ utmost attention when any of these respected teams square off either during a regular season game or when it is amplified further during a postseason tilt or a championship final.
These comparisons resonate with a CFL fan.
Ask any fan from Calgary or Edmonton, the feelings are comparable to that of the trio rivalry of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. This rivalry extends to the Calgary Flames vs. the Edmonton Oilers as also the case with the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
Enjoy the 2024 Labour Day Classic to the Fullest
The 2024 edition of the Labour Day Classic will come with a new neutral site game. The Ottawa REDBLACKS will head west to take on the BC Lions. However, the game will not be held at BC Place Stadium, but in Victoria, British Columbia on Vancouver Island.
Just like previous seasons when regular season games were held out east for Touchdown Atlantic, the CFL will have the west version called Touchdown Pacific.
So, with the Labour Day Weekend officially beginning on Saturday, August 31st, 2024, think about your first Labour Day experience. Think about when you would get up in the morning, and friends and family would meet up either at your place or you made the pilgrimage to their place. Maybe it was one of those traditions that you always travelled to McMahon Stadium, Ivor Wynne Stadium, Molson Stadium, BC Place Stadium, and Winnipeg Stadium. Maybe it was an annual tradition among families to be the visiting fans to cheer on your Eskimos / Elks, Blue Bombers, Argonauts, Lions, Rough Riders / Redblacks, and Alouettes. Maybe it was a family tradition of gathering in your backyard to barbecue through the weekend and watching every Labour Day game on TV simultaneously. Think about those special memories of watching games on TV, or attending the game for that matter, with your grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, aunts, uncles, mother and father. Maybe it was a tradition of also you remembering and talking to friends and family about classic Labour Day games of the past that included past players like Doug Flutie, Nik Lewis, Angelo Mosca, Garney Henley, Jim Stillwagon, Tommy Joe Coffey, Johnny Bright, Lui Passaglia, Corey Banks, Tom Wilkinson, Henry “Gizmo” Williams, Tracy Ham, Anthony Calvillo, S.J. Green, Sonny Wade, Warren Moon, Milt Stegall, Ken Ploen, Doug Brown, Less Browne, James Murphy, Charles Roberts, Matt Dunigan, Damon Allen, Ron Lancaster, George Reed, Hugh Campbell, Eagle Keys, Roger Aldag, Allen Pitts, Ray Elgaard, Grover Covington, Joe Montford, Joe Zuger, John Barrow, Bernie Faloney, Rocky DiPietro, Earl “The Pearl” Winfield, Ben Zambiasi, Wayne Smith, Russ Jackson, “Dr. Death” Dave Fennell, Dan Kepley, and the list goes on and on.
To all the fans out there, tell me why the Labour Day Classic is an important tradition. What are your memories of the past and the modern era?
The one thing that we all know for sure, is that there will be a lot of fireworks from the players with hits after the whistle, ejections, intense hits, players being knocked out of a game, a pick-six to the house, a sack that gets the crown doing, and a game-winning field goal.
Some fans will go home happy, while others will be sad. But the one theme that will come out of the 2024 Labour Day Classic is simple. All of these games will be exciting.
Enjoy the 2024 edition of the Labour Day Classic. It will be a beauty.
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