WINNIPEG — Alexandre Gagne figures his Montreal Alouettes might gain new fans in Sunday’s Grey Cup against the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The special-teams captain doesn’t think Winnipeg Blue Bomber fans at sold-out Princess Auto Stadium will cheer for the green-and-white Riders — it’s just not in their DNA.
“I just can’t see it because I don’t think it’s something that’s possible. They were born to hate the Riders,” Gagne said this week.
“It’s just passed on every generation, so I hope that the Blue Bombers are going to be cheering for us. It’s still going to be a blue team that’s going to be winning the Grey Cup, so I feel that that’s maybe what they’re going to be cheering for.”
The backup linebacker from St. Hubert, Que., entered the CFL in 2017 and played three seasons with the Roughriders before joining the Alouettes in 2021.
The Bombers crossed over to play Montreal in the CFL East Division semifinal and lost. It halted Winnipeg’s chance to play at home in a sixth consecutive Grey Cup, but many of the team’s supporters will be among the 32,343 fans in the stands.
Alouettes quarterback Davis Alexander has already been feeling the love in Winnipeg.
“Shoot, every restaurant we go to and every spot we go to, everyone keeps saying, ‘Go Als’ so that makes us happy,” Alexander said Saturday via a video conference call after the team had left the stadium.
“I know a lot of guys on our team were saying (to fans), ‘We don’t really care, just wear blue. Wear your Bomber blue, that’s good with us.’ It’s been awesome here and the fans have been so great. That’s what makes the CFL so cool.”
The Alouettes didn’t hold a regular walk-through practice. Instead, they gathered with family on the turf to chat, joke around and take photos — until a fire alarm caused by a burst water pipe went off. The stadium was evacuated and the team went back to its hotel.
Montreal third-string and short-yardage quarterback Shea Patterson is also linked to the Roughriders.
Patterson played his rookie season with the Alouettes in 2021, then joined Saskatchewan in 2023 for two years.
The Toledo, Ohio, native attended Bombers training camp this year, but was released in mid-May. While he was training quarterbacks at a friend’s facility back home and being a dad to his 17-month-old son, the Alouettes called him in August after the team was hit with injuries.
Now the 28-year-old is playing in the championship game against the team that didn’t want to keep him, but he holds no grudges.
He agrees with Gagne that Bomber fans may throw their allegiance behind the Alouettes instead of the Riders.
“I’m very familiar with that rivalry, so hopefully we’ll get a good amount of Bomber fans rooting for us,” Patterson said.
PUMPED UP BY PAINT
Fans won’t be the only ones in the stadium wearing face paint.
Montreal defensive lineman Isaac Adeyemi-Berglund and linebacker Darnell Sankey literally put on their game faces.
The six-foot-one, 245-pound Sankey uses black makeup and paints stripes at an angle across his face to look like a claw.
“It kind of puts me in that feeling of like being at war, like I’m in the jungle somewhere and I’m fighting for my survival,” he explained this week.
Sankey started doing different patterns on his face when he had brief stints with some NFL teams earlier in his career.
The California native entered the CFL in 2021 with the Calgary Stampeders, played the next season with Saskatchewan and then found a home with Montreal in 2023 and won the Grey Cup.
Adeyemi-Berglund paints huge black circles around his eyes, including on the eye lids, and down toward his beard.
“When I get to the point when it’s all done and the finished product, I’m in a place mentally where I’m OK to accept the responsibility of playing the game,” he said.
The Dartmouth, N.S., product played for the Stampeders from 2021-23 and then joined the Alouettes.
Seeking his first CFL title, Adeyemi-Berglund said the key to beating the Riders and veteran quarterback Trevor Harris is staying focused.
“You’ve got two great teams, two juggernauts that are full of veterans,” he said.
“It’s just being able to be disciplined and be in the right place at the right time where you’re supposed to be and not try to do too much.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 15, 2025.
Judy Owen, The Canadian Press
