They play on Labour Day, just like the Battle of Alberta, and the TiCat-Argo Clash, and they call it the Banjo Bowl, and don't ask me why, but the games between The Green Riders and Blue Bombers are usually more special.
Whether it is prairie bragging rights, or pure hatred from neighbouring provinces, but Winnipeg vs Saskatchewan always seem to bring out the best.
Lancaster to Hugh Campbell, George Reed rumbles in from 3 yard line, with Bomber lineman draped on his back. Dieter Brock, or Tommy Clements to Tommy Scott, or Joe Poplawski on a snowy field in Regina, when they called it Taylor Field.
These games in September are just a table setter to the November clashes when the prairie weather creates high winds, blowing snow, and slick icy fields.
The conditions become part of the panorama of western games.
Thanks to global warming we don't see too many of those grisy games when the field level was almost a white out condition, and playing on fake grass also takes some of the old style game away, but regardless, they hit each other harder, and it's hyped greater than other divisional games.
It is what makes our game very special, it spans the country, it spans time zones, it spans geography, and culture and the best part of it, it unites the country like nothing else short of an election, or a bonspeil. Give the Melon Heads of Regina and Saskatoon, and Moose Jaw their due, they travel like a thundering herd to Manitoba in droves to support their boys, and they have thee most ardent fans in this Canadian game. They are like no other fans, and they are proud of the small community feeling the Roughriders bring out.
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