The Labour Day Classic is a particular week of the Canadian Football League

Canadian Football League

The Canadian Football League or CFL is a professional sports league located in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football, a form of gridiron football closely related to American football....

 schedule that is played over the Labour Day

Labour Day

Labour Day or Labor Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. Labour Day has its origins in the labour union movement, specifically the eight-hour day movement, which advocated eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, and eight hours for...

 weekend. This particular weekend, typically the tenth or eleventh week in the season, is known for its matchups that do not change from year to year, unlike other weeks of the CFL schedule. It is also only one of two weeks (the Thanksgiving Day Classic

Thanksgiving Day Classic

The Thanksgiving Day Classic is an annual doubleheader held on Thanksgiving in the Canadian Football League. It is one of two days in which the league plays on a Monday afternoon; the other is the Labour Day Classic...

 being the other) in the CFL schedule that the league plays on a Monday. Scotiabank

Scotiabank

The Bank of Nova Scotia , commonly known as Scotiabank , is the third largest bank in Canada by deposits and market capitalization. It serves some 18.6 million customers in more than 50 countries around the world and offers a broad range of products and services including personal, commercial,...

 is the event's presenting sponsor as of 2011.

The traditional Labour Day weekend matchups involve the Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Winnipeg Blue Bombers

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They are currently members of the East Division of the Canadian Football League . They play their home games at Canad Inns Stadium, and plan to move to a new stadium for the 2012 season.The Blue Bombers were founded...

 visiting the Saskatchewan Roughriders

Saskatchewan Roughriders

The Saskatchewan Roughriders are a Canadian Football League team based in Regina, Saskatchewan. They were founded in 1910. They play their home games at 2940 10th Avenue in Regina, which has been the team's home base for its entire history, even prior to the construction of Mosaic Stadium at Taylor...

 on the day before Labour Day, while on Labour Day itself, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats

Hamilton Tiger-Cats

The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats. The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium...

 are at home against the Toronto Argonauts

Toronto Argonauts

The Toronto Argonauts are a professional Canadian football team competing in the East Division of the Canadian Football League. The Toronto, Ontario based team was founded in 1873 and is one of the oldest existing professional sports teams in North America, after the Chicago Cubs and the Atlanta...

 while the Edmonton Eskimos

Edmonton Eskimos

The Edmonton Eskimos are a Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. They currently play in the West Division of the Canadian Football League . Edmonton is currently the third-youngest franchise in the CFL, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895...

 visit the Calgary Stampeders

Calgary Stampeders

The Calgary Stampeders are a Canadian Football League team based in Calgary, Alberta and named in reference to the Calgary Stampede. The Stampeders play their home games at McMahon Stadium...

. The Montreal Alouettes

Montreal Alouettes

The Montreal Alouettes are a Canadian Football League team based in Montreal, Quebec.The current franchise named the Alouettes moved to Montreal from Baltimore, Maryland, in 1996 where they had been known as the Baltimore Stallions...

 face Ottawa to round out the weekend. The BC Lions

BC Lions

The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team competing in the West Division of Canadian Football League . Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, the Lions play their home games at BC Place Stadium in Downtown Vancouver, having previously played at Empire Stadium in East Vancouver from 1954...

 have no Labour Day rivals and have had a bye week on Labour Day in the past. Because Ottawa has been dormant since the 2006 season (and will remain so until at least 2014), the Alouettes have usually played the Lions during these times of dormancy, creating a "Coast-to-Coast" rivalry; also during these times, the Alouettes have received an annual home game in the Thanksgiving Day Classic

Thanksgiving Day Classic

The Thanksgiving Day Classic is an annual doubleheader held on Thanksgiving in the Canadian Football League. It is one of two days in which the league plays on a Monday afternoon; the other is the Labour Day Classic...

 in most of these years.

During the early 1980s, the Montreal Concordes instead played the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as their Labour Day rival instead of the Ottawa Rough Riders

Ottawa Rough Riders

The Ottawa Rough Riders were a Canadian Football League team based in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1876. One of the oldest and longest lived professional sports teams in North America, the Rough Riders won the Grey Cup championship nine times. Their most dominant era was the 1960s and 1970s, a...

. Due to scheduling conflicts, the Tiger-Cats temporarily revived its rivalry with the current incarnation of the Alouettes in the Labour Day game for the 2011 season

2011 Hamilton Tiger-Cats season

The 2011 Hamilton Tiger-Cats season was the 54th season for the team in the Canadian Football League and their 62nd overall. The Tiger-Cats finished 3rd place in the East division with a 8–10 record. After hosting the East Semi-Final in 2009 and 2010 with no success, the Tiger-Cats had to go on the...

; the change in opponents led Hamilton to dub the game the Labour Day Classique in reference to Montréal's Francophone community. While in 2011, this automatically resulted in Toronto and BC facing each other, in the 1980s, the three teams (Toronto, Ottawa and BC) rotated each year.

Some of the teams wear special third jersey

Third jersey

A third jersey or alternate jersey is a sports team's alternate and/or throwback design for the previously established other two jerseys, the home and away outfits. Alternate jerseys are used in all four of the North American major professional sports leagues as well as college sports, semipro...

s or throwback uniform

Throwback uniform

Throwback uniforms and jerseys are one-time or limited-time variations on a sports team's uniforms styled to resemble uniforms from that team's past. They have proven popular in all major pro and college sports in the USA, not only with fans, but with the teams' marketing and merchandising...

s if they play at home.

Although not associated with the Labour Day Classic, the week after Labour Day often has a repeat match-up of the Bombers vs Roughriders (see Banjo Bowl), Stampeders vs Eskimos (see Battle of Alberta

Battle of Alberta

The Battle of Alberta is a term applied to the intense rivalry between the Canadian cities of Edmonton, the capital of the province of Alberta, and Calgary, the province's largest city...

), and Tiger-Cats vs Argonauts, (a rivalry which began in 1873) with home field advantage now to the team that did not have it during the Labour Day weekend. While this did not occur for the 2008 Classics, it was brought back in 2009.

As the league has been increasing in popularity in recent years, print ads for the Labour Day Classic try to evoke the tradition of watching Canadian football on the last weekend of summer. Slogans include "Long Live the Rivalries" and "Watch the Team You Love Play the Team You Love to Hate".

The rivalries between these pairings are long-standing, based on both the physical proximity of the competing cities and the relatively small number of teams within a league that has existed for so long. Fans of each team regularly claim their matchup to be the Labour Day Classic, as if there was only one game.

Montreal vs Ottawa

1949: Alouettes 21 - Rough Riders 22

1952: Rough Riders 32 - Alouettes 21

1953: Alouettes 6 - Rough Riders 26

1954: Alouettes 20 - Rough Riders 11

1955: Rough Riders 22 - Alouettes 34

1956: Rough Riders 10 - Alouettes 42

1957: Rough Riders 21 - Alouettes 22

1958: Rough Riders 9 - Alouettes 11

1959: Alouettes 22 - Rough Riders 7

1960: Rough Riders 22 - Alouettes 39

1961: Alouettes 24 - Rough Riders 25

1963: Rough Riders 37 - Alouettes 15

1967: Alouettes 5 - Rough Riders 17

1971: Alouettes 17 - Rough Riders 40

1975: Rough Riders 18 - Alouettes 11

1978: Rough Riders 23 - Alouettes 18

1996: Alouettes 6 - Rough Riders 17

2003: Alouettes 38 - Renegades 43

2004: Alouettes 22 - Renegades 16

2005: Renegades 18 - Alouettes 41

Montreal Alouettes 9-11

Ottawa Rough Riders and Renegades 11-9

Did not play in following years:

1946, 1947, 1948, 1950, 1951, 1962, 1964,

1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973,

1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982,

1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 2002

No Montreal team from 1987 to 1995

No Ottawa team from 1997 to 2001

No Ottawa team from 2006 to 2013

• Montreal Alouettes were founded in 1946

Montreal vs British Columbia

1980: Lions 14 - Alouettes 6

1997: Lions 15 - Alouettes 26

1998: Alouettes 26 - Lions 15

1999: Alouettes 23 - Lions 44

2000: Alouettes 35 - Lions 25

2001: Lions 19 - Alouettes 23

2006: Lions 48 - Alouettes 13

2007: Alouettes 14 - Lions 46

2008: Lions 25 - Alouettes 30

2009: Alouettes 12 - Lions 19

2010: Lions 38 - Alouettes 17

Montreal Alouettes 5-6

B.C. Lions 6-5

Did not play the following years:

1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1996,

2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2011

Winnipeg at Saskatchewan

1949: Blue Bombers 9 - Roughriders 20

1950: Blue Bombers 2 - Roughriders 17

1951: Blue Bombers 24 - Roughriders 22

1952: Blue Bombers 16 - Roughriders 8

1953: Blue Bombers 19 - Roughriders 23

1954: Blue Bombers 14 - Roughriders 18

1961: Blue Bombers 17 - Roughriders 11

1962: Blue Bombers 30 - Roughriders 7

1963: Blue Bombers 9 - Roughriders 15

1970: Blue Bombers 11 - Roughriders 30

1972: Blue Bombers 21 - Roughriders 32

1974: Blue Bombers 20 - Roughriders 18

1975: Blue Bombers 23 - Roughriders 27

1977: Blue Bombers 18 - Roughriders 26

1978: Blue Bombers 31 - Roughriders 29

1979: Blue Bombers 28 - Roughriders 11

1980: Blue Bombers 32 - Roughriders 29

1982: Blue Bombers 36 - Roughriders 35

1983: Blue Bombers 30 - Roughriders 32

1984: Blue Bombers 25 - Roughriders 30

1985: Blue Bombers 18 - Roughriders 10

1986: Blue Bombers 30 - Roughriders 34

1987: Blue Bombers 29 - Roughriders 25

1988: Blue Bombers 19 - Roughriders 29

1989: Blue Bombers 28 - Roughriders 20

1990: Blue Bombers 11 - Roughriders 55

1991: Blue Bombers 23 - Roughriders 56

1992: Blue Bombers 20 - Roughriders 32

1993: Blue Bombers 25 - Roughriders 24

1994: Blue Bombers 31 - Roughriders 42

1995: Blue Bombers 4 - Roughriders 56

1996: Blue Bombers 23 - Roughriders 41

1997: Blue Bombers 43 - Roughriders 12

1998: Blue Bombers 18 - Roughriders 32

1999: Blue Bombers 17 - Roughriders 42

2000: Blue Bombers 29 - Roughriders 38

2001: Blue Bombers 20 - Roughriders 18

2002: Blue Bombers 19 - Roughriders 33

2003: Blue Bombers 36 - Roughriders 18

2004: Blue Bombers 17 - Roughriders 4

2005: Blue Bombers 26 - Roughriders 45

2006: Blue Bombers 12 - Roughriders 39

2007: Blue Bombers 26 - Roughriders 31

2008: Blue Bombers 6 - Roughriders 19

2009: Blue Bombers 14 - Roughriders 29

2010: Blue Bombers 23 - Roughriders 27

2011: Blue Bombers 7 - Roughriders 27


Saskatchewan Roughriders 30-17

Winnipeg Blue Bombers 17-30

Did not play the following years:

1946, 1947, 1948, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958,

1959, 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968,

1969, 1971, 1973, 1976, 1981

Edmonton at Calgary

1949: Stampeders 20 - Eskimos 6

1950: Eskimos 19 - Stampeders 13

1951: Eskimos 18 - Stampeders 17

1952: Stampeders 10 - Eskimos 17

1953: Stampeders 5 - Eskimos 19

1959: Eskimos 16 - Stampeders 10

1960: Eskimos 27 - Stampeders 28

1961: Eskimos 10 - Stampeders 9

1962: Eskimos 17 - Stampeders 49

1963: Eskimos 14 - Stampeders 16

1968: Eskimos 10 - Stampeders 8

1969: Eskimos 14 - Stampeders 16

1970: Eskimos 13 - Stampeders 28

1971: Eskimos 7 - Stampeders 23

1972: Eskimos 31 - Stampeders 19

1974: Eskimos 20 - Stampeders 16

1975: Eskimos 35 - Stampeders 31

1976: Eskimos 19 - Stampeders 17

1977: Eskimos 22 - Stampeders 8

1978: Eskimos 28 - Stampeders 28

1979: Eskimos 27 - Stampeders 1

1980: Eskimos 38 - Stampeders 23

1982: Eskimos 20 - Stampeders 32

1983: Eskimos 15 - Stampeders 18

1984: Eskimos 30 - Stampeders 28

1985: Eskimos 34 - Stampeders 28

1986: Eskimos 42 - Stampeders 19

1987: Eskimos 20 - Stampeders 29

1988: Eskimos 27 - Stampeders 11

1989: Eskimos 31 - Stampeders 14

1990: Eskimos 38 - Stampeders 4

1991: Eskimos 36 - Stampeders 48

1992: Eskimos 34 - Stampeders 21

1993: Eskimos 13 - Stampeders 33

1994: Eskimos 13 - Stampeders 48

1995: Eskimos 26 - Stampeders 51

1996: Eskimos 13 - Stampeders 31

1997: Eskimos 14 - Stampeders 27

1998: Eskimos 8 - Stampeders 26

1999: Eskimos 33 - Stampeders 30

2000: Eskimos 30 - Stampeders 18

2001: Eskimos 33 - Stampeders 32

2002: Eskimos 28 - Stampeders 20

2003: Eskimos 22 - Stampeders 28

2004: Eskimos 25 - Stampeders 7

2005: Eskimos 25 - Stampeders 23

2006: Eskimos 23 - Stampeders 44

2007: Eskimos 24 - Stampeders 35

2008: Eskimos 37 - Stampeders 16

2009: Eskimos 8 - Stampeders 32

2010: Eskimos 5 - Stampeders 52

2011: Eskimos 35 - Stampeders 7

Edmonton Eskimos 30-20-1

Calgary Stampeders 20-30-1

Did not play in following years:

1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1964,

1965, 1966, 1967, 1973, 1981

• 1949, 1952 and 1953 games played in Edmonton
• Edmonton Eskimos were founded in 1949

Toronto at Hamilton

1948: Argonauts 14 - Wildcats 7

1949: Argonauts 36 - Wildcats 14

1950: Argonauts 6 - Tiger-Cats 13

1951: Argonauts 6 - Tiger-Cats 27

1952: Argonauts 33 - Tiger-Cats 13

1953: Argonauts 10 - Tiger-Cats 14

1954: Argonauts 21 - Tiger-Cats 7

1955: Argonauts 12 - Tiger-Cats 37

1956: Argonauts 21 - Tiger-Cats 31

1957: Argonauts 8 - Tiger-Cats 35

1958: Argonauts 24 - Tiger-Cats 31

1959: Argonauts 3 - Tiger-Cats 37

1960: Argonauts 32 - Tiger-Cats 21

1961: Argonauts 19 - Tiger-Cats 21

1963: Argonauts 1 - Tiger-Cats 7

1964: Argonauts 8 - Tiger-Cats 24

1967: Argonauts 9 - Tiger-Cats 12

1968: Argonauts 18 - Tiger-Cats 15

1971: Argonauts 17 - Tiger-Cats 30

1975: Argonauts 11 - Tiger-Cats 20

1978: Argonauts 16 - Tiger-Cats 19

1980: Argonauts 2 - Tiger-Cats 23

1987: Argonauts 25 - Tiger-Cats 19

1988: Argonauts 28 - Tiger-Cats 56

1989: Argonauts 18 - Tiger-Cats 23

1991: Argonauts 24 - Tiger-Cats 48

1992: Argonauts 24 - Tiger-Cats 27

1993: Argonauts 21 - Tiger-Cats 23

1994: Argonauts 31 - Tiger-Cats 19

1996: Argonauts 38 - Tiger-Cats 7

1997: Argonauts 46 - Tiger-Cats 3

1998: Argonauts 7 - Tiger-Cats 26

1999: Argonauts 28 - Tiger-Cats 35

2000: Argonauts 12 - Tiger-Cats 42

2001: Argonauts 13 - Tiger-Cats 26

2002: Argonauts 14 - Tiger-Cats 22

2003: Argonauts 19 - Tiger-Cats 11

2004: Argonauts 30 - Tiger-Cats 30

2005: Argonauts 30 - Tiger-Cats 33

2006: Argonauts 40 - Tiger-Cats 6

2007: Argonauts 32 - Tiger-Cats 14

2008: Argonauts 34 - Tiger-Cats 31

2009: Argonauts 15 - Tiger-Cats 34

2010: Argonauts 13 - Tiger-Cats 28

Toronto Argonauts 14-28-1

Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Wildcats 28-14-1

Did not play the following years:

1946, 1947, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970,

1972, 1973, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1981,

1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1990, 1995,

2011

Montreal at Hamilton

Currently, Hamilton has played and hosted the Labour Day Classic against Montreal (aka Labour Day Classique) nine times in CFL history. According to a Hamilton Spectator article, 2011 marks 25 years since Montreal has battled Hamilton in this Classic at home. In previous years, Montreal has played as either the Alouettes or Concordes.

1962: Alouettes 25 - Tiger-Cats 25

1965: Alouettes 2 - Tiger-Cats 17

1970: Alouettes 12 - Tiger-Cats 17

1982: Concordes 9 - Tiger-Cats 28

1983: Concordes 30 - Tiger-Cats 35

1984: Concordes 11 - Tiger-Cats 30

1985: Concordes 16 - Tiger-Cats 19

1986: Alouettes 7 - Tiger-Cats 42

2011: Alouettes 21 - Tiger-Cats 44


Montreal Alouettes and Concordes 0-8-1

Hamilton Tiger-Cats 8-0-1