Youth rally in Saskatoon kicks off Grey Cup week

It was loud Tuesday as more than 1,500 students brought the energy to begin Grey Cup week.

Kids packed Merlis Belsher Place in Saskatoon as Indigenous dancers, the Saskatchewan Roughriders cheer team, Roughriders quarterback Cody Fajardo and head coach Craig Dickenson started off the festivities.

Former Riders fullback Neal Hughes hosted the event and is glad the CFL’s title game is back in Saskatchewan. The Grey Cup game was to be played at Regina’s Mosaic Stadium in 2020, but that season was cancelled due to the pandemic.

“When COVID hit and we had to postpone it, that was pretty sad, but now it’s finally here. It feels great to have it back in the province,” Hughes said during the rally.

The theme for the youth rally was focusing on kids’ mental health, recovering from the stresses of the pandemic and bringing the community back together.

The Grey Cup on display during the youth rally at Merlis Belsher Place in Saskatoon. (Steve Seto/650 CKOM)

That message was brought home by another keynote speaker, former Saskatchewan Marathon champion Tarrant Cross Child.

“Each and every person may be struggling with something today. So we hope through this youth rally we’re going to be able to inspire them so that they leave those doors getting back on the buses changed and transformed,” Cross Child said.

Hughes says he created a lot of great memories of the Green and White watching games with his dad and now he’s sharing it with his own kids.

“I fell in love with the game watching the Roughriders and I’ve been able to pass that along to the kids and they’ve also fallen in love with the game,” hesaid.

“It seems there’s a lot of kids and a lot of youth in this province that, given the opportunity to play the game of football, they’d fall in love with it too.”

There will be a number of free family events in Regina for the Grey Cup Festival.

Riders president and CEO Craig Reynolds said the organizing committee wanted to make sure everyone in the province felt connected.

“We thought about the trek that Riders fans take every game day from Saskatoon down through Davidson and Chamberlain and Lumsden and through to Mosaic Stadium. So we wanted to duplicate that,” Reynolds said.

Those locales will be part of a Grey Cup parade that will head down Highway 11 on Wednesday.

Grey Cup Festival events are to begin in Regina on Wednesday leading up to the game on Sunday.