CALGARY – The Edmonton Elks and Calgary Stampeders squared off in one of football’s greatest traditional rivalry games, the Labour Day Classic, at McMahon Stadium on Monday. Calgary came out on top by a score of 28-7, after scoring 15 unanswered points to break open what was a one-possession game in the third quarter.
Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo completed 21 of 33 passes for 255 yards and added 44 yards rushing on six carries. Edmonton receiver Arkell Smith led all players in the game with 7 receptions for 81 yards, while Justin Rankin was Edmonton’s top rusher with 48 yards on 13 carries.
Despite outgaining the Stampeders in 328-287 in net offence, the Elks were unable to find the endzone, going 0-for-2 in the redzone. The Elks got all their points from kicker Vincent Blanchard, who was 2-for-3 on field goal attempts and had a single.
52 yards and a career long from Vinny for the triple! 🦵#GoElks pic.twitter.com/5VDqL3PvsH
— Edmonton Elks (@GoElks) September 1, 2025
“We didn’t really struggle moving the ball, we did a great job moving the ball … but when we did get field position we didn’t take advantage, unfortunately,” Fajardo said in a post-game interview on 880 CHED. “They’re the No. 1 team in the league for a reason, and when you don’t play clean football you really don’t have a fighting chance against a team like that.”
Erik Brooks, Dominique Rhymes and Quincy Vaughn all scored touchdowns for the Stampeders, who also got a pair of field goals from Rene Paredes. Calgary quarterback Vernon Adams Jr. was largely held in check by the Elks defence, completing just 13 of 23 passes for 162 yards.
The Stampeders got on the board first, taking a 7-0 lead after Adams passed to Rhymes for a 22-yard touchdown with 5:52 remaining in the first quarter. Edmonton responded with a drive of over five minutes, culminating in a 31-yard field goal from Blanchard on the final play of the opening quarter, making the score 7-3 in favour of the the home side.
Calgary restored its seven-point advantage early in the second quarter, when Paredes booted a 33-yard field goal. The game turned just before half, when Edmonton was unable to score a touchdown and had to settle for a single with just 14 seconds left. Calgary then capitalized on a pass interference call to move into field goal range, where Paredes connected from 49 yards to put the Stamps up 13-4 going into the break.
Blanchard knocked through a field goal from 52 yards, a new CFL career high for the national kicker, as Edmonton clawed back to within six points early in the second half. However, the Stamps would go ahead 20-7 after a game-breaking play by Brooks, who returned an Edmonton punt 86 yards to the house with 6:11 remaining in the third quarter.
Calgary closed things out in the fourth quarter, extending its lead to 28-7 with Vaughn scoring a one-yard touchdown on a QB sneak followed by a successful two-point conversion rush by Dedrick Mills.
“Full credit to them, they beat us tonight,” said Elks coach Mark Kilam. “I thought we were hanging in the first half, even though we weren’t executing very well on offence, I thought we were right there. That pass interference at the end of the half gave them some momentum with the field goal, and then we never really recovered from the punt return touchdown.”
The Elks and Stampeders meet again in the Labour Day Classic rematch, 5 p.m. on Sept. 6 at Play Alberta Field at Commonwealth Stadium. Tickets are available now.
THEY SAID
Linebacker Joel Dublanko on the Labour Day Classic atmosphere:
“It was an awesome environment, great opponent, and we just didn’t executive well enough for the whole game, and they just did a good job. But an incredible environment, it was really awesome to see the fighter jets making their passes – that gets everybody fired up – and the energy of the crowd, it was great.”
Kilam on if there were moments the Elks can build on for the rematch:
“I’m sure there will be. I’ll dig into the film and find those, but there’s going to be things in all three phases that we need to get better at. We did tighten up a little bit on the run, but I’ve got to see some of those fits early in the first half. But there’s not a lot of time to feel sorry for ourselves, we’ve got to regroup, we’ve got these guys in five days.”
Fajardo on the rematch:
“The best part about a short week is when you lose, you’ve got a chance to get the bad taste out of your mouth. This week is going to be very mental and not so much physical, try to get the body back going. It’s a quick turnaround, to see what they were doing on defence. Short weeks are more difficult on offences, because it’s a little bit easier for a defence to change up one or two things than an offence to completely change up their scheme, so we’ve got our work cut out for us. We didn’t score an offensive touchdown tonight, so we’re going to have to figure things out and be a better offence to help our team out.”