Taylor Shire
Regina Leader-Post
After hosting the Grey Cup in 2022, the Canadian Football League’s championship game will once again be played in Regina in 2027.
CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston made the official announcement on Monday morning at Mosaic Stadium, which will see a West division team host the Grey Cup for a fourth straight year.
What an exciting day for not just this province but the entire country,” said Johnston. “It’s going to be such a celebration in 2027.
“We know that the province of Saskatchewan, the City of Regina, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders can put on a show, and we’re looking forward to that.”
After originally being awarded the 2020 Grey Cup, which was cancelled due to the pandemic, the Roughriders hosted the game in 2022 and now want to build off that experience five years later.
“The key to the bid process is to elevate the Grey Cup as an event,” said Roughriders CEO Craig Reynolds. “It’s an extensive bid. It’s well over 100 pages of plans, financials, and really the concept is, how are you going to elevate this event?
“And so we were able to again identify the things that worked really well, and highlight those to Stewart and the selection committee, and then come up with some new innovative ideas that we thought would work, one of which we sort of announced today, which is an all-indoors street festival, because that was one of the things we learned in 2022.”
And while it might feel like not a lot of time has passed between Grey Cups being played in Regina, Reynolds said his team felt prepared to take on the challenge of hosting again, knowing that Mosaic Stadium is “turnkey” to host major events like this.
“We have such amazing facilities here,” said Reynolds. “We have a really good blueprint from 2022. We felt like there’s some things that worked extremely well, there’s some things we would do differently. And so we were able to quite quickly identify those and put a bid together.
“And really, when we looked at the landscape across the CFL in terms of who had recently hosted, stadium projects across the league, we just saw this as a window, and we thought we’re just going to take this as an opportunity to bring this major event to Saskatchewan.”
The 2022 Grey Cup was the first championship game played at new Mosaic Stadium, which opened in 2017, after Regina previously hosted the championship game at old Taylor Field in 2013, 2003 and 1995.nd in 2027, the Grey Cup will be played a week earlier than usual as the CFL will be moving up the schedule by a week, marking the earlier the Grey Cup has ever been played in its 114-year history.
“There’s been an emphasis on (moving up the season) and we’ve been wildly supported of that concept just given the potential for weather challenges” said Reynolds. “I just think moving the season up has lots of benefits, one of which is your Grey Cup is just a little bit earlier, and the odds of really, really cold weather is a lot less.”
After the Roughriders hosted in 2022, the Grey Cup went East as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats hosted in 2023. Last year, the B.C. Lions hosted the game and this year it’s Winnipeg’s turn with Calgary on the clock next year.
For the commissioner, while he would love to see the championship game be played in every market, the bids from the West division teams have been hard to ignore.
“I love to see the Grey Cup represented across the country,” said Johnston. “And we’ve had so many outstanding Grey Cups over the last few years here in Western Canada, as we have in Eastern Canada.
“It’s a celebration for the entire country, and I want to make sure that is represented, but here in Saskatchewan, we have the experience as recently as ‘22 and we know what a success this can be.
“There’s communities out here in the West that have just demonstrated that they love the social aspect of this, but they love the support of the community across the country, of what it means for the entire CFL, and they like the spotlight on their stadium; on their community. So really, we’ve just seen multiple fantastic bids from the West.”
Montreal has not hosted the Grey Cup since 2008 while it hasn’t been played in Toronto since 2016. Ottawa last hosted in 2017 while Hamilton played host in 2021 and again in 2023. Edmonton, which hosted in 2018, is the lone West market that hasn’t hosted the Grey Cup in the last five years.
