Grey Cup in Calgary: players arrive, ‘don’t touch it’

The Montreal Alouettes and Edmonton Elks, upon their arrival Tuesday in Calgary, filed past the Grey Cup trophy they desperately want to win.

“Don’t touch it, don’t touch it,” some Elks players muttered in keeping with a superstition that your hands get on the trophy only if you win it.

The football clubs clash Sunday at McMahon Stadium in the 113th Grey Cup.

The Alouettes landed in Calgary in the early afternoon Tuesday ahead of the Elks, who arrived at the airport charter terminal by bus.

Montreal is back in the Canadian Football League’s championship game for a third time in four years. 

The Alouettes lost to the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 2025 and beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2023 for Montreal’s eighth Grey Cup victory.

“We talk about our grind for nine,” Alouettes head coach Jason Maas said. “This week is not normal. As much as you want to make it a normal week, it’s not. 

“I want our players to be excited about this week. They’ve earned this right to be here. They need to enjoy themselves, but be focused on task. We gave them one day to figure out their families getting here, tickets, all that stuff. We said there is nothing more important in their lives this week than getting the ninth great cup for this organization.”

Edmonton has won the Grey Cup 14 times, which ranks second to the Toronto Argonauts’ 19, but hasn’t played in the championship game since winning the title in 2015.

The Elks (13-5) finished first in the West Division to end a five-year playoff drought. Edmonton defeated the B.C. Lions 28-16 in the division final to advance.

Elks linebacker Nick Anderson has a Grey Cup trophy photo as his mobile phone screen saver, and also incorporated the 113th Grey Cup logo in his X profile photo last year.

“Last year, the season ended and they dropped the logo for (this) game and I was just like, ‘We’re gonna be there,'” Anderson said. “I really believe in manifestation because simply where you put your mind is where your body’s gonna follow. 

“I knew the potential that this organization had. I knew the lineage that we had in the past and I knew this city was dying for us to be back where we needed to be.”

The Alouettes ranked first in the East with a league-best 14-4 record before downing the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who crossed over from the West, 33-23 in Saturday’s division final.

Montreal won in 2023 with current Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo under centre. 

The Als traded him to the Elks in 2024 to hand duties to Davis Alexander.

“I texted Cody earlier on in the year just randomly, just thanking him for how easy he made the process for me, kind of tagging along and just being on his hip all the time,” Alexander said.

Said Fajardo: “It’s just pretty cool that the stories worked out nicely for both sides, for me and for them and to be here, when they clinched their ticket into the Grey Cup, I knew it was destiny.

“I’d be lying to stand up here and say that some games just don’t mean a little bit more, and in a Grey Cup, in the biggest game of the year, playing your former team that kind of shipped you out and traded you, things are going to mean a bit more, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to try any harder. I try hard every game.”

Edmonton boasts a stout defence against both the pass and the run, and leads the CFL in rushing yards. 

Alexander, who was named this season’s Most Outstanding Player, leads a well-rounded offence headlined by Most Outstanding Canadian Tyson Philpot.

The 26-year-old receiver knows McMahon well after his four-year university career with the Dinos. 

He’s requested his old locker room stall at McMahon and said his twin brother Jalen, a Calgary Stampeders receiver, will handle all friends and family ticket requests for Sunday.

“Had this circled on my calendar since I knew it was going to be in Calgary,” Philpot said. “Definitely just a cool feeling to know that I’m kind of doing a full-circle moment and playing my pro football championship at my college town.”

Calgary will host the Grey Cup game a sixth time, and the first since 2019 when the Blue Bombers defeated the Hamilton Tiger Cats.

Sunday’s forecast is for a high of 12 with part sun and cloud. 

Over 40,000 fans filled Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium for the West Division final. 

Elks head coach Mark Kilam, who spent 20 years on the Stampeders coaching staff before Edmonton hired him for the 2025 season, hopes a lot of them follow the team to Calgary. 

“We just made it down here in about two hours and a bit, so I mean, it’s an easy drive,” Kilam said. 

“Let’s go, let’s pack this place and paint the city green and gold.”