Craig Reynolds says it was special to win the Grey Cup as he looks ahead to 2026

The Saskatchewan Roughriders enjoyed a very successful season in 2025.

Saskatchewan won the 2025 Grey Cup after beating the Montreal Alouettes 25-17 in Winnipeg. It was the fifth time the CFL club has raised the championship trophy in franchise history.

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• Saskatoon will host Canadian Senior Curling Championships in 2026

One man who has been through the ups and downs of the franchise is Roughriders president and CEO Craig Reynolds.

Reynolds joined the Green Zone on Tuesday to discuss the big win and a look ahead at the 2026 season.

Listen to the full interview with Reynolds or read the transcript below:

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

THE GREEN ZONE: What was it like to hold the trophy in Winnipeg in 2025?

CRAIG REYNOLDS: It was so special. and that’s the only way to describe it. It was a special group this year. I was just so happy for our fans. Just seeing the response in Winnipeg in the stadium, even when I went from the field to the locker room there were still hundreds of fans just standing there, cheering and celebrating. I was just so happy for our fans. Obviously there are special moments with my kids. They were on the field. It took me a while to find my kids, but when I finally found them and was able to give them a hug, that was really, really special. Then just watching the guys celebrate and watching the players celebrate in the locker room, it’s something I’ll never forget.

I was impressed with how the Winnipeg fans received the Saskatchewan Roughriders winning the Grey Cup on their turf. I thought they were pretty gracious.

REYNOLDS: I felt the same. I thought they were great hosts throughout the entire week. I was actually surprised by the number of Bomber fans who said they were cheering for us and for the west. I thought it was pretty split in the stadium. Somebody asked me about that, and I said it was just loud. It was loud when we were on offence and it was loud when they were on offence. I thought they they were gracious as well.

Was it self assuring? Was it one of those moments where you’re like, ‘OK, we’re doing it right?’

REYNOLDS: I think it’s validation that what Corey (Mace) and Jeremy (O’Day) are doing with the culture they built is proving successful. I just looked at it from a team perspective, and we’re doing the right things in the right way. Players want to be here, coaches want to coach here, and they want to commit to being in Saskatchewan. They see what we’ve got going on here, so a bit of validation in terms of we’re doing things the right way. The arrow is pointing up, and we’re able to accomplish something that we’ve only done four times in our history. That was only the fifth time, and we hadn’t done it in 12 years. I was just so happy for everybody, the entire organization. We have so many people in our organization who have never experienced that, so they got to experience that. Just so happy for our fans to have to wait 12 years and then finally get to experience that moment.

The schedule came out on Tuesday. The FIFA World Cup is affecting things. If there was one change you could make on the schedule, what would it be?

REYNOLDS: I’ve been on record with the Thursday night challenges in Saskatchewan. I would probably trade a Thursday night for any other game. Growing up in Foam Lake, it’s a challenge. We have so many fans who travel so far to our games, and it just is a challenge on Thursday night to make that trip.

Should the CFL season start with a Grey Cup rematch? Is it tough to have a bye week to start instead of celebrating the Grey Cup win?

REYNOLDS: The multiple teams on the bye week is a product of the World Cup. We’ve got two venues offline, so the schedule needs to be more loaded towards the back, so you put three teams on bye to start with to accommodate that. The reality is, in order to launch a schedule by December 9, you have to have your schedule finalized before Grey Cup. So the reality is, the schedule was pretty much final prior to Grey Cup. You can’t just start changing one variable in a schedule this complicated. You almost have to redo the entire schedule, so you can’t adjust in real time. So when the schedule was finalized, we didn’t know who was going to be in the Grey Cup. We certainly didn’t know we were going to be in it. We didn’t know we were going to be Grey Cup champs.

The Toronto Argonauts appear to have reached out to Corey Mace. That could be perceived as tampering. Did you pursue that with the league?

REYNOLDS: First and foremost, we’re super happy with Corey’s level of commitment to Saskatchewan. He is so committed to being here. He loves being in Saskatchewan. What I will say is we alerted the league that we didn’t receive permission to talk to Corey Mace.

There is a new TV deal on the horizon for the Canadian Football League. How much is the board and the commissioner really looking at streaming and needing a streaming partner?

REYNOLDS: When you look at where we’re at as a league right now, and certainly who our commissioner is, there’s probably nobody better positioned to understand the sports broadcasting landscape than Stewart Johnston. He comes from that industry. I would suggest that we have a great partner in TSN, and we have some exclusivity clauses in there in terms of exclusive negotiation windows and those types of things. I think that’s where the league’s going to focus their initial energy on, but certainly we’re well aware of the broader landscape. I think, from a league perspective, we’ve got a great partner in TSN and so they’ll continue with those conversations.

Is there a conversation around replica rings for fans?

REYNOLDS: Certainly an active discussion. Things have changed a fair bit in that world where you’re able to source replica rings. That’s something that’s definitely on our radar, and we will see where that goes.

There’s a focus on big halftime shows for games in other markets. What are some teases for the Riders in 2026?

REYNOLDS: We’re really excited about having 10 regular-season games. We’ve been really happy with some of the innovative things we’ve done with the light shows. We did that in our Christmas in July, and just tried that in preparation for our lights-out game. It was just awesome, and the fan response was incredible. We do post-game surveys after every game. I know it’s more pregame, but the tailgating opportunity, from an entertainment and an environment perspective, I think that could be a game changer in terms of the atmosphere in and around the stadium in the lead up to the game. We have that halftime debate every year. Some teams lean into it heavily. I think we’re somewhere in the middle, where we look at signature games like Labour Day and try to do something for our fans from a halftime perspective, but we also look at the entire game experience. You have to balance where you’re spending your dollars and what you’re focused on.

There was no doubt that season ticket sales took a bit of a hit with the time out of the playoffs and things like that. Where are you tracking now?

REYNOLDS: We’re tracking really, really well. We saw an immediate drop-off in season tickets coming out of COVID. Obviously we missed the playoffs for a couple of years and so we saw a decrease. Last year, we were able to reverse that trend, which was really, really important. So we’re able to actually increase our season ticket base, albeit marginally, but we are able to do that. This year, what we’re seeing so far is an extremely high renewal rate, which is outstanding and excellent, and we’re seeing really high new season sales as well. Right now, we’re more than double our new seasons from the same point last year. Last year was a very strong season for new seasons. The trend is really positive.

A follow-up to that, are you fearful there will be an impact because of the rule changes?

REYNOLDS: We’ve heard it. Trust me, I understand where they’re coming from. Certainly I understand that if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. That wasn’t the intent, from the league perspective. They’re looking to take what we all feel is a really great Canadian game and trying to make it better. They are trying to do some specific things around that, and specifically trying to increase the number of touchdowns that are scored. Based on their research and the work that they did, this was the set of rules that they felt would accomplish that, including increasing the pace of play as well was the other benefits of that. We certainly have gotten lots of feedback on it. It’s been mixed, but I tend to hear from the same set of folks who are who are not happy. They don’t want the game to be messed with. To date, it hasn’t had a significant impact. We asked folks if they’re not renewing, why they’re not renewing, and it’s a very, very small number that are.

What can we expect for banner night?

REYNOLDS: Home opener, obviously, June. 13. Great opponent, by the way. You know, it’s a west final rematch with B.C. We’re just so excited to do that, when you’ve only won four in your franchise history. We left some room up there so we could expand. If you look to the north end zone of Mosaic stadium, there’s room for a few more, so we’ve got room for the 2025 banner. We’re just so excited to be able to unveil that, and it’s gonna be so special for our fans to do that in front of our home crowd.