Labour Day Classic

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The Labour Day Classic is a particular week of the Canadian Football League schedule that is played over the Labour Day weekend. This particular weekend, typically the tenth or eleventh week in the season, is known for its fixtures that do not change from year to year, unlike other weeks of the CFL schedule.

As of 2006, the current Labour Day weekend match ups involve the Winnipeg Blue Bombers visiting the Saskatchewan Roughriders on the day before Labour Day, while on Labour Day itself, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are at home against the Toronto Argonauts while the Edmonton Eskimos visit the Calgary Stampeders.

Although not associated with the Labour Day Classic, the week after Labour Day often has a repeat match-up of the Bombers vs Roughriders (see Banjo Bowl), Stampeders vs Eskimos (see Battle of Alberta), and Tiger-Cats vs Argonauts, with home field advantage now to the team that did not have it during the Labour Day weekend.

As the league has been increasing in popularity in recent years, print ads for the Labour Day Classic try to evoke the tradition of watching Canadian football on the last weekend of summer. Slogans include "Long Live the Rivalries" and "Watch the Team You Love Play the Team You Love to Hate".

The rivalries between these pairings are long-standing, based on both the physical proximity of the competing cities and the relatively small number of teams within a league that has existed for so long. Fans of each team regularly claim their matchup to be "the" Labour Day Classic.

British Columbia and Montreal however are not a part of the Labour Day Classics (although in the past Montreal has played Ottawa), and usually have bye weeks during this week. These two teams have sometimes played each other on Labour Day weekend as they are further apart geographically than any other two teams (making it the closest the CFL has to a "Coast to Coast" rivalry). They are also the two youngest tems in the league.