Friday night’s game between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calgary Stampeders has officially been rescheduled due to poor air quality at Mosaic Stadium.
The game will now be played on Saturday, July 12 at 4:00 p.m. EDT – roughly 15 hours after the plug was officially pulled. All tickets used on Friday will remain valid for Saturday. Out-of-town fans who are unable to attend will be refunded or otherwise compensated with new tickets.
“Rider Nation, you are truly amazing. Thank you so much for your incredible patience and passion. Throughout the day, the CFL and the Saskatchewan Roughriders monitored the air quality with the help of in-house meteorologists and forecasting models. Those forecasts indicated that the smoke would clear, and the air quality would be at an acceptable level to play football this evening. Unfortunately, the wind has died down and it is not currently at an acceptable level to play.”
According to Roughriders’ team president Craig Reynolds, the team became aware that smoke might be an issue on Thursday, but meteorologist projections suggested it would clear. That initially held true on Friday, with wind clearing the air over Moose Jaw. Unfortunately, that didn’t continue once it reached Regina and put everyone involved into a holding pattern.
The CFL originally pushed the game by 45 minutes, with warmups scheduled to begin at 9:10 p.m. EDT. However, air quality levels did not reach a level acceptable for players to take the field and went on for nearly four hours.
The league finally set a drop-dead time for the start of warmups at 12:45 a.m. EDT, with kickoff 30 minutes later. Once that benchmark was missed, the game was officially postponed and fans were sent home.
“I just can’t believe our fan base. I’m trying not to get emotional, but I was just blown away today. I couldn’t believe how they were tonight, and the number of people that stuck it out, even after we announced that we were only going to wait to 10:45,” Reynolds marvelled in his media availability.
“I thought we’d see an exodus, and we really didn’t. They stuck it out. They want to see football as much as we want to play football. We have the best fans; we’ve said that over and over again, but tonight proved it. We have literally the best fans in the world, and we want to play football for them. Our team wanted to play football, and we did everything we possibly could to try to get this game in tonight. But unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate.”
Under the terms of the CFL’s weather protocol, any delay of more than three hours is supposed to result in cancellation. Per the policy, players are “NOT required to play on the following day” and instead will play a two-possession shootout to determine the winner prior to their next meeting. The CFL appears to have made an exception in this case, believing that the policy only applies when teams have already warmed up.
“That’s really to protect the players once they’ve warmed up, once they’ve started playing, to prevent long delays, and obviously the issues it does for their bodies,” Reynolds explained. “If you’ve not warmed up, which tonight we didn’t, and we didn’t start the activity, if you will, you can delay as long as you need to.”
This is the second Riders game to be delayed due to wildfire smoke this year. A preseason tilt with Winnipeg was delayed but played the same day.
In 2019, the CFL and CFL Players’ Association (CFLPA) agreed that players should not practice or play outdoors if the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) is eight or higher. Air quality in Regina continues to be listed as a 10+ on the AQHI — the highest possible rating — but is forecasted to improve overnight.
According to Environment Canada, air quality due to wildfire smoke can fluctuate over short distances and vary considerably from hour to hour.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders (4-0) and Calgary Stampeders (3-1) will rest overnight before reconvening to determine the West Division leader. The Stamps successfully secured lodging despite multiple events pushing many Regina hotels to capacity, though they will be spread out across multiple locations, including the University of Regina dorms. The Riders have agreed to assist with their laundry and logistics to help alleviate those issues.
The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS in Canada and on CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on 770 CHQR in Calgary and 620 CKRM in Regina.
J.C. Abbott is a University of British Columbia graduate and high school football coach. He covers the CFL, B.C. Lions, CFL Draft and the three-down league's Global initiative.
