The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Organized football in Saskatchewan began on Sept. 6, 1910 with the formation of the Regina Rugby Club. The original idea was for the team to be a rowing club, but three-down football soon found its way to Saskatchewan. The Regina Rugby Club lost its first game 7-6 to Moose Jaw, but something special had been born. In 1924, the team changed its name to the Regina Roughriders. Ottawa's rugby club had been called the Rough Riders since the 1890s, but dropped it in favour of 'Senators' in 1924. Regina jumped at the chance to adopt the name. There are two theories on where the name 'Roughriders' came from. One states that it came from the North West Mounted Police, who were called Roughriders because they broke in the wild broncos used by the force. The other states there was a Canadian contingent who fought with Teddy Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt's troops became known as the Roughriders. Following the war, the troops returned to Canada, some of them to Ottawa. In 1921, East-West interlocking games began being played for the Canadian Championship symbolized by the Grey Cup. The year 1948 was a milestone one for the Roughriders. With the folding of clubs in Moose Jaw and Saskatoon, the Regina Roughriders became a provincially-owned club, surviving only on the support from the province. They became the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The team also changed its colours in 1948 to the familiar green and white. The team was in bad need of new uniforms, and when executive member Jack Fyffe found a set of green and white jerseys at a surplus store in Chicago, for pure economic reasons, the legacy of the 'Green and White' was born. In 1956, the Roughriders suffered a terrible tragedy when four players were killed in a plane crash while returning from an all-star game in Vancouver. Ten years later, the Roughriders saw their first great achievement. By defeating the Ottawa Rough Riders 29-14 in Vancouver on Nov. 26, 1966, Saskatchewan captured its first Grey Cup. The Riders remained one of the best teams in the CFL for nearly 15 years, making the post-season every year from 1962 to 1976. Included in that span were five Grey Cup appearances, 1966 (which they won), '67, '69, '72 and '76. The Roughriders had several lean years in the late-70s and early '80s, when poor on-field performances led to even worse attendance. However, fans remained positive that a turnaround would happen and it did, by way of one of the best Grey Cup games ever played. On Nov. 26, 1989, Dave Ridgway nailed a 35-yard last-minute field goal to seal the Roughriders' second Grey Cup championship with a 43-40 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Toronto. The Riders reached the pinnacle of the CFL for the third time when they captured the Grey Cup in Toronto on Nov. 25, 2007 after defeating the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-19. _ Compiled from information appearing on the Saskatchewan Roughriders website
