A tight race in the CFL\u2019s West Division has made Sunday\u2019s Labour Day Classic even more important as the Saskatchewan Roughriders host the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The longtime rivals are caught in a highly competitive division with all five teams separated by just six points, with the Riders and Bombers second and third, behind Edmonton. It\u2019s been said that the CFL season doesn\u2019t get serious until Labour Day weekend arrives but given the logjam in the standings, the pressure has arrived early for the teams out West.<\/p>\n
Head coach Corey Mace acknowledged the tight race but didn’t commit to the Riders having to play their best games for the remainder of the regular-season schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know if it’s more of an issue,” Mace said. “I think regardless of the records or the standings, we’re just always trying to (be our best) anyway. But certainly, I think that the situation the West Division’s in right now \u2014 every game is crucial, whether it’s a Western opponent or not, we\u2019re going to go toe to toe, and on Labour Day, this is setting up to be a great game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Riders have had a consistent mantra all season: \u201cLet\u2019s go 1-0 this week.\u201d Quarterback Trevor Harris says that mindset hasn\u2019t changed and that every game is crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s our job to win this game, this is the most important game of the year. Last week against Toronto during that week, it was the most important game of the year,” he said. “So for us, the urgency is up. We\u2019re coming off a two-game stretch where we didn\u2019t play our best football, so we\u2019ve got to bear down and make sure we\u2019re playing our best football.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s what I focused on, making sure we have great energy, execution and being in attack mode each and every day of practice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Harris, though, has a simple formula for the Riders to win Sunday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy being ourselves, not anything new. They’re a good football team. They have been for quite a long time,” he said. “They’ve been the class of the league for quite a while, and they have our respect, and I’m sure we have theirs. It’ll be a fun matchup but it’s going to be 60 minutes of violent football, and it’s what we look forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rivalry is given additional prominence with Labour Day kicking off a home-and-home series. After the Bombers swept the Labour Day Classic and the Banjo Bowl in 2024, the Riders did the same in 2025.<\/p>\n
All four games were one-score contests with the Bombers winning 35-33 and 26-21 and the Riders earning 34-30 and 21-13 victories.<\/p>\n
Mace expects the status quo for this season\u2019s series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just speaks, at least in the last handful of years in the West, these two teams have been really good teams and I don’t expect that to change,” he said. “We\u2019ve got crazy respect for this team and what they’ve been able to do in the past, and even leading up to where they are at now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“And obviously, my respect for (Mike O\u2019Shea) and his coaching staff. We talk about it all the time, play to the echo of the very last whistle whenever the heck that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
ON A HEATER: Winnipeg quarterback Zach Collaros had his best game of the season on Aug. 28 with 324 passing yards and two touchdowns on 26-of-32 passing in a 44-28 victory over the Montreal Alouettes. Making his 150th career start, Collaros improved his career record to 93-57, including 59-25 with the Bombers.<\/p>\n
QUITE THE COMEBACK: The Riders overcame a 15-point deficit in a 28-24 victory over the Toronto Argonauts last Saturday. It was Saskatchewan\u2019s largest comeback victory since an 18-17 win over the Ottawa Redblacks on Sept. 29, 2017, in a game where they trailed 17-0.<\/p>\n
CLOSING IN ON A MILESTONE: Riders receiver KeeSean Johnson enters Sunday\u2019s game just 10 yards short of 1,000 yards for the season. Johnson is third in the league in receiving yards after totalling 1,159 yards on 86 receptions in 2025. In last week\u2019s victory over the Argos, Johnson had 10 catches for 146 yards and one touchdown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tight race in the CFL\u2019s West Division has made Sunday\u2019s Labour Day Classic even more important as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197584,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-197583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}