Saskatchewan Roughriders: 2025 Grey Cup Champions
The 2025 CFL season ultimately belonged to the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Long regarded as a passionate fan base in search of fresh glory, Rider Nation finally got its payoff when Saskatchewan beat the Montreal Alouettes 25–17 in the 112th Grey Cup at Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg.
The Riders leaned on a classic CFL championship recipe: a veteran quarterback, a physical ground game and a defense that hunts mistakes. Trevor Harris, at 39, capped one of the best seasons of his career by guiding Saskatchewan’s offence and earning his first Grey Cup as a starting QB.
The defense did the rest, forcing three interceptions and holding a potent Montreal attack to just 17 points after the Als had stormed through the East on the back of Davis Alexander’s record-breaking unbeaten run to start his career.
This was Saskatchewan’s fifth Grey Cup title and their first since 2013, snapping a 12-year drought and confirming what mid-season odds had hinted at: the Riders weren’t just a nice story, they were the league’s best team front to back.
Add in sold-out stands and record TV and digital engagement for the Grey Cup, and 2025 will be remembered as the year Saskatchewan turned promise into a fully formed championship run.
CFL Biggest Betting Surprise: Calgary Stampeders
If Saskatchewan were the champions, Calgary were the revelation. Coming off a 5–12–1 season in 2024, expectations were modest; many analysts were openly pessimistic about their Grey Cup chances in preseason previews.
Instead, the Stampeders roared back to finish 11–7, good for third in the tough West and a return to playoff football, where they fell in the West Semi-Final to BC.
Early in the year, betting pieces and power rankings alike were already calling Calgary the biggest surprise team in the CFL, noting how quickly they neared last season’s win total and climbed toward the top of the West standings.
Behind improved quarterback play, a retooled offense and a defense that made timely plays, the Stamps flipped their narrative from “rebuilding” to “contender” in a matter of weeks.
From a betting perspective, Calgary was a gift for much of the year: early lines priced them like a fringe team, while their performance looked more like that of a top-three club. For value hunters, they were arguably the single best “overachiever” side of the 2025 CFL season.
CFL Most Underperforming Team: Toronto Argonauts
On the other side of the ledger, it’s hard to look past the Toronto Argonauts as 2025’s most underperforming team. The Argos entered the season as defending Grey Cup champions and opened as one of the favourites in early 2025 Grey Cup odds, only to unravel almost immediately.
Toronto stumbled to a 5–13 record, finished third in a weak East Division and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
A brutal 1–4 start prompted multiple mid-season autopsies labelling their campaign a crisis, and by October, local and national coverage was describing an “ugly year” capped by a 44–13 blowout loss to Calgary in the season finale.
For bettors, the Argos were the league’s cautionary tale: a preseason favourite whose lines often reflected last year’s glory rather than this year’s reality. Anyone who kept fading Toronto against the spread as the season wore on likely finished 2025 feeling much better than the Double Blue themselves.
Next CFL Season Start and End Dates
Looking ahead, the 2026 CFL season is scheduled to run on a familiar timeline, giving fans a full summer and fall of Canadian football. Officially, the league lists the 2026 campaign as running from June through October, with the 113th Grey Cup set for November 15, 2026 at McMahon Stadium in Calgary.
While the exact week-by-week fixtures will only be confirmed when the full schedule is released on December 9, 2025, the pattern is clear: expect a 21-week regular season beginning in early to mid-June, followed by playoffs through early–mid November. Once the schedule is announced, you will be able to find all the scheduled matches in the list above.
As usual, each of the nine teams will play 18 regular-season games with three bye weeks, and the top three clubs in each division will qualify for the postseason.
One wrinkle for 2026 is the impact of the Soccer World Cup, which will push the Toronto Argonauts and BC Lions to play some “home” games in alternate venues during June and July, but that won’t change the overall CFL calendar.
For fans and bettors, that means you can pencil in another full CFL ride from early June right through to Grey Cup Sunday in mid-November.
CFL Past Winners
Canadian Football League boasts a long history, and, in general, it is considered to be a competitive league. The list of the past winners seems to confirm that, and here it is:
| Year | Grey Cup Champion | Runner-up |
|---|
| 2025 | Saskatchewan Roughriders | Montreal Alouettes |
| 2024 | Toronto Argonauts | Winnipeg Blue Bombers |
| 2023 | Montreal Alouettes | Winnipeg Blue Bombers |
| 2022 | Toronto Argonauts | Winnipeg Blue Bombers |
| 2021 | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | Hamilton Tiger-Cats |
| 2019 | Winnipeg Blue Bombers | Hamilton Tiger-Cats |
| 2018 | Calgary Stampeders | Ottawa Redblacks |
| 2017 | Toronto Argonauts | Calgary Stampeders |
