The 113th Grey Cup is set for Sunday, November 15 at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, where the Montreal Alouettes meet the Edmonton Elks with kickoff at 6 p.m. ET. This is a preview of Sunday’s championship game. Montreal (14-4) finished first in the East and plays in its second consecutive Grey Cup, while Edmonton (13-5) finished first in the West and reaches the final for the first time since winning it in 2015, according to the 113th Grey Cup matchup record.
Both teams earned their places on Saturday. Montreal beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 33-23 in the Eastern Final, a game capped by a spectacular touchdown from Tyler Snead. Edmonton then upset the BC Lions 28-16 in the Western Final in front of more than 40,000 fans at Commonwealth Stadium, with Cody Fajardo leading the charge on 274 passing yards and 84 rushing yards, with a touchdown in each category, according to the Grey Cup matchup report.
Join The iimiTV Letter
Enter your email and we will send you a confirmation link. Click it and your first edition lands on Friday.
The Quarterback Playing His Own History
Every Grey Cup has a storyline, and this one’s wears an Edmonton jersey. Fajardo was named the most valuable player of the Grey Cup when the Alouettes won it in 2023. Montreal traded him to Edmonton after the 2024 season, and now, one year on, he plays the Alouettes for the championship he once delivered to them.
The reunion runs through both coaching staffs. Alouettes head coach Jason Maas and general manager Danny Maciocia were both previously fired by the Elks, the team they now have to beat to lift the Cup. Fajardo and wide receiver Austin Mack both ended up in Edmonton after being released by Montreal. Sunday’s final is, on both sidelines, a game against the people who decided these men were no longer needed, and in a one game championship that kind of history does not need to be manufactured. It walks onto the field on its own.
It is also the 11th time these two franchises have met in a Grey Cup final, one of the oldest championship rivalries in Canadian football, renewed at a neutral site in Calgary with the Grey Cup Festival already open in the city this week.
Two Meetings, Two Completely Different Games
The season series offers no clean prediction, because the two meetings barely resembled each other. Edmonton won 32-29 in overtime at home in Week 3, powered by 230 yards from Justin Rankin. Montreal answered with a 48-30 victory in Week 10 at Percival Molson Stadium, where Tyson Philpot piled up 131 yards and three touchdowns.
That split is the tactical puzzle of the week. If Sunday becomes a ground game, Edmonton’s Rankin and Fajardo’s legs, which produced 84 rushing yards in the Western Final, give the Elks a path to control the clock and keep Montreal’s offence watching. If it opens up, Montreal’s receiving depth and a 14 win season’s worth of offensive rhythm make the Alouettes the more dangerous side, and the oddsmakers have installed them as the favourites for a reason.
Edmonton’s own rise is the season’s other big story. The Elks finished first in the West at 13-5 a year after a 7-11 fifth place finish, becoming the first team in league history to go from last in its division to first in one season, and they won their first division final since 2019 to get here. A turnaround that fast usually ends one game short. Sunday decides whether this one does.
What Sunday Settles
Montreal is playing for a ninth championship and for the ending last year denied them, when they lost the final to Saskatchewan. Edmonton is playing for a 15th title and its first in eleven years, with a quarterback who has already won this exact game, in this exact pressure, wearing the other team’s colours.
The Argonauts, the league’s most decorated Grey Cup franchise, are spectators this year after their 25-22 East Semi Final loss to Winnipeg on October 31, which makes Sunday a showcase for where the league’s power sits now: a complete Montreal team that has lived at the top of the East for two years, against an Edmonton team that rebuilt itself in a single season around a quarterback with a point to prove. Kickoff is 6 p.m. ET on Sunday at McMahon Stadium, carried across Canada on TSN, CTV, RDS and Crave. One game, two former homes for half the people in it, and a Cup waiting at the end.
