The end of the summer has officially arrived. Days have begun to get shorter, nights are getting cooler and football is about to be everywhere. The arrival of Labour Day may mark the end of the summer but in its place we are left with football season; possibly the best of all the seasons. Entire weekends can now be consumed with NFL, NCAA, CIS, and High School football games, and although the CFL season is about to reach the halfway point, “the real CFL season begins after Labour Day”.
Compared to other sports like baseball, basketball and hockey, a football season is made up of relatively few games, which subsequently makes each and every game hugely important. That being said, the fact that the CFL is a relatively small league with only eight teams, combined with the fact that six teams make the playoffs, the first half of the season is all about staying in the hunt for a position among the division leaders.
Regardless of what your team did during the first half of the season, Labour Day weekend in the CFL signals a new beginning. If your team had a great first half you have to avoid resting on your record and continue to work toward winning your division. However, if you struggled early, the second half of the season is your chance to get back on track, because in the end it’s all about being in the playoffs where you’re only two or three wins away from lifting Earl Grey’s cup.
What better way to begin a new season within a season then to take on your biggest rival. A tradition unique to the Canadian Football League, Labour Day is reserved for some of the greatest grudge matches in sport. The Bombers and the Riders, the Stamps and the Esks and the oldest of all, the ‘Cats and Argos all face off in divisional match-ups on the last long weekend of the summer. They are games that always seem to be fiercely contested and win-lose records don’t seem to matter.
Playing in a Labour Day Classic at Ivor Wynne is like playing in a homecoming game at Richardson Stadium. The crowd is a little louder, the hits are a little bigger and winning doesn’t get any sweeter. Like a playoff game, the Labour Day classic is one of those games that come with a little something special in the air that makes the game just a little bigger than others. My most memorable Labour Day Classic as a player was 2006. I ran out of the dressing room as a starter for first time in my home town as a member of the hated Double Blue. To add to the thrill of getting your first start as a pro in a stadium you play in during high school it was also the night Damon Allen become professional footballs most prolific passer. To not only get my first start but to be on the field for such a historic night is one of my most fond football memories and something I will never forget,
There is no question that the Labour Day game is one of the hottest tickets in town. Ever since I was a kid growing up in Hamilton, I remember Labour Day being the most important football game of the year. Little has changed over the years as people have been coming up to me throughout the summer and telling me how excited they are for the game, and that they already have their tickets.
As special as the game may be for us as players, it is the fans that the game is truly for. After all, it is the fans that create that special something in the air and it is the fans that have made it the tradition it is. More than any other game in a season full of fierce competition, Labour Day is one for the fans of our league. So sit back and relax on your long weekend and enjoy a grudge match between bitter rivals as the best of all the seasons gets under way Canadian style.
– As seen in the Kingston Whig Standard