The 2026 CFL schedule was released on Tuesday, leading to a number of key takeaways regarding the football calendar.
Arguably the best part of the schedule release is seeing what each of the league’s nine teams has cooked up to draw eyeballs and sell tickets. It’s become the norm in professional sports to publish themed videos to commemorate the announcement on social media and build anticipation for the coming year.
At 3DownNation, we’ve taken the liberty of ranking all nine CFL schedule reveals for 2026. Let’s go.
9) Toronto’s pathetic graphic
As has been the case in recent years, Toronto did nothing to commemorate the CFL’s schedule release except post a generic graphic.
This is lazy and unacceptable for the attention economy and digital age in which we live. Since the Argonauts put no effort into this, there’s no reason to waste any energy criticizing them.
Moving on.
8) Saskatchewan runs B-roll
It appears the Roughriders were too busy basking in the glow of their Grey Cup championship to put much effort into their schedule release video.
This post didn’t include any original or scripted segments, instead being a mere compilation of B-roll and highlights from the 2025 season. A lot of the clips look great and it’s understandable that the team wants to tout its championship for as long as possible. With that said, this feels a little bit lazy.
The best part of the video was a series of bloopers from Kian Schaffer-Baker trying unsuccessfully to do various ad reads. At one point, he collapses to the turf laughing and declares, “I quit!” This was genuinely funny.
There’s nothing wrong with this video — it just doesn’t hold up to most of the others released on Tuesday. The Roughriders are at the top of the CFL world right now and they should have celebrated by dropping an elite video.
7) Riding horses
The Stampeders featured Chelsea Drake, the team’s horse rider, doing a pseudo “get ready with me” video, which is a popular format online.
Drake finds blue and gold products while doing her makeup and tosses them across the room, declaring, “Ew!” This served as the video’s way of announcing Calgary’s three regular-season dates against the Blue Bombers.
The rest of the project went similarly with Drake finding a black uniform for Labour Day, opening a can of cat food for games against Hamilton, and polishing the Stampede Bowl trophy ahead of this year’s matchup with Toronto.
The snow-covered drone shots of Drake’s property were beautiful and the horses, dogs, and cats were all cute. With that said, this video could have punched much harder. The Elks are Calgary’s most hated rival and they should be ruthlessly roasted, not given a free pass.
6) Hamilton goes bowling
The Tiger-Cats had great production value for their schedule release video, which may have been thanks to its presenting sponsor. With that said, the theme was a little bit odd.
It’s not uncommon for teams to tap into online trends or celebrate local culture as part these videos, which is why it was weird to see the Tiger-Cats feature… bowling? Is Hamilton known for bowling? If so, I was unaware.
References to the CFL’s other teams were cleverly strewn throughout the video as a watermelon was spotted on a ball return, a pair of cowboy boots were placed in a line of bowling shoes, and an elk bowled with an assist ramp, yet still ended up in the gutter.
I kept waiting to see if the team would make some type of cross-reference between “Bo Levi Mitchell” and “Bo-wling” but it never happened — possibly because the franchise quarterback is a pending free agent and has yet to commit to playing in 2026.
5) Big Joe’s workshop
The entry from the nation’s capital featured the team’s mascot, Big Joe, in his workshop where he played with toys representing the CFL’s other franchises.
Some of these connections were clearer than others as Joe threw around a toy bird for the Alouettes, made a wooden horse for the Stampeders, and played with a combine for the Roughriders. For the Argonauts, however, Joe poured water into a bin and then pretended to reel in a rubber ducky, using his axe as a mock reel. This was a little weird.
In a wild twist, Joe referenced the Lions by taking a DVD copy of the 2008 film ‘Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,’ scribbling out the other characters, and emphatically circling the lion. He then smashed the disc and stomped on the shards. It’s unclear why Ottawa was unable to source a toy lion but the DVD made for a bizarre and hilarious prop.
The Redblacks also took subtle shots at opposing teams with clumsily-made prop books labelled, “Crisis Communications 101: a Toronto Story,” “Pacific Northwest Water Cycle: a B.C. Survival Guide,” “Alouettes Cookbook: Recipes for Humble Pie,” and “Rider Nation: Joys of Wheat Farming.”
4) ‘ElkTok’
This video featured Punter, Edmonton’s anthropomorphic football mascot, going on the fictional social media platform ‘ElkTok’ to watch a series of clips.
The first was a group of pundits roasting the Redblacks, one of whom said Justin Trudeau’s relationship with Katy Perry was “someone in Ottawa finally (making) it to the end zone.”
The next segment was a mukbang-style video of someone eating poutine — gratuitous slurping noises and all — which served to announce Edmonton’s games against Montreal.
Other segments included declarations that there is “absolutely nothing” worth doing in Winnipeg, watermelons and beer cans being crushed by a hydraulic press, cats doing weird things, and a dig at what the video termed a “Toronto accent,” which was really just generic hockey speak.
Edmonton has struggled on the field in recent years but this was a respectable off-field effort on schedule release day.
3) Alouettes go hunting
Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund hosted Montreal’s schedule release video, which was themed around his love of hunting. Animal rights activists had no reason to fear, however, as the veteran defensive lineman was armed with a paintball gun and hunted people donned by camouflage snowsuits topped by jerseys, t-shirts, and jackets from other CFL teams.
“The thing about elks is they can grow up to 1,100 pounds,” said Adeyemi-Berglund at one point. “Another thing about elks is that they’re incredibly easy to track.” The 29-year-old also spoke a lot of French in the video, which was impressive for a non-Quebecer.
For reasons that remain unclear — perhaps the Alouettes worried the hunting theme would grow repetitive — the video changed halfway through as Adeyemi-Berglund was suddenly stationed in a small room where he began smashing things — a boat for the Argonauts, a plane for the Blue Bombers, and a watermelon for the Roughriders.
This video was fun, violent, bilingual, and showed off Adeyemi-Berglund’s personality. All in all, it was very well done.
2) ‘Lion detector’ test
The Lions tapped into a fun online trend with one of their players being subjected to a futile lie detector test.
The video starts with the testers mistaking defensive back Jackson Findlay for franchise quarterback Nathan Rourke, the two of whom share a legitimate resemblance. When Rourke enters the room and realizes the mix-up, he takes a dig at TSN’s Vancouver bureau reporter, saying, “You guys thought I was Jackson again? What are you, Farhan Lalji?”
The rest of the video includes self-deprecating jokes from Rourke about his poor track record against Winnipeg and yelling, “This is our time!” during the West Final moments before Saskatchewan’s successful comeback.
There were also shots at Hamilton receiver Kiondré Smith, the Argonauts for losing their head coach, Calgary for allowing 50 points to B.C. in September, and the Redblacks, who Rourke declined to roast, saying they’re “going through enough.”
1) Winnipeg’s video game
The Blue Bombers have a history of nailing these type of videos, often going significantly further than any other team in their attempts to mercilessly roast opposing teams. Some of the jokes can be flat-out obnoxious, which is arguably a good thing if the goal is to generate the largest possible reaction.
This year was no different as Winnipeg released a video game. Yes, this is a real, retro-style single-player video game that can be fully played by clicking here.
Though the Blue Bombers didn’t clown on their rivals in Regina — the team referenced its nihilistic social media post that immediately followed Saskatchewan’s Grey Cup victory at Princess Auto Stadium — this was a high-effort, hilarious undertaking from a Winnipeg team that never pulls punches and knows how to get a reaction.
