WINNIPEG — Thirteen years ago, Trevor Harris got a sobering reminder there’s more to life than football.
Harris earned his first Grey Cup ring in 2012 as a rookie quarterback with the Toronto Argonauts. But that year, his parents, Tom and Suzanne Harris, were involved in a serious motorcycle accident.
“We didn’t know if they were going to make it or not,” Harris recollected Saturday following the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ walkthrough. “My dad had a broken neck and back, 75 stitches in his face and my mom had a broken orbital bone, her face shattered, ankle, wrist.
“They ended up making it and I just remember thinking, ‘Football is not this important. I need to go home and be with my family.’ So I got on the phone with my dad and the words he could muster were, ‘If you come home from playing football, I’ll make your face look like mine.'”
Harris’s parents will be in attendance Sunday when Saskatchewan faces the Montreal Alouettes in the Grey Cup at Princess Auto Stadium. Harris, 39, is a two-time CFL champion but is still searching for his first as a starter.
“It’s awesome (having parents here),” Harris said. “They have nine lives and they’re on their third so they’ve got plenty of time left.”
Both teams made lineup changes for Sunday’s game.
Canadian receivers Ajou Ajou and Mitchell Picton will play for Saskatchewan while Dhel Duncan-Busby and Joe Robustelli come off the roster. Picton, of Regina, attended the ’13 Grey Cup in his hometown when the Riders beat Hamilton for their last championship.
Montreal returner James Letcher Jr. (leg) won’t play, with backup running back Travis Theis handling return duties. Defensive tackle Mustafa Johnson (shoulder) and receiver Austin Mack (hamstring) are game-time decisions while Canadian offensive lineman Pier-Olivier Lestage (neck) starts after being a late scratch in the East final versus Hamilton.
Montreal’s walkthrough was more a photo opp for family and friends as the Als didn’t practise. While they were on the field, an alarm that went off due to water pipe bursting forced the evacuation of the stadium and when people were allowed to return, the team had already left although starter Davis Alexander spoke to reporters via video conference.
Alexander was planning for a low-key Saturday evening that would include going for dinner with roughly 19 friends and family.
“I’m not a superstitious guy but I do like to go to dinner, I like to have a decent meal,” he said. “We’ll go to dinner, enjoy each other’s company and just be thankful for the moment.
“I’ll come back here (hotel), take a look at the playbook a little bit, maybe watch a bit more film until I fall asleep but I’ll have college football going on in the background. I’ll make sure I get a decent sleep.”
The two teams split the season series 1-1 but Alexander missed both contests with a hamstring injury. The ailment limited Alexander, 27, to just seven starts in his first campaign as Montreal’s No. 1 quarterback but he was 7-0 to improve to 11-0 overall, the best start to a career in CFL history.
Alexander also led Montreal to consecutive playoff wins versus Winnipeg (42-33) and Hamilton (19-16) but tweaked his left hamstring in the fourth quarter versus the Ticats. Alexander continued on, engineering the seven-play, 36-yard drive that set up Jose Maltos Diaz’s 45-yard field goal with no time left.
Alexander’s health has been the story here. But after receiving treatment all week, Alexander said he’s between 75 to 90 per cent.
“I keep saying it but it (treatment) has gone better than expected,” Alexander said.
Alexander’s status is key for Montreal, which is 3-8 this season in games he didn’t start. Backup McLeod Bethel-Thompson was 3-5 as the Alouettes starter and threw for 379 yards and three TDs in a 48-31 road victory over Saskatchewan on Sept. 13.
Receiver Tyson Philpot had nine catches for 238 yards and two TDs while Stevie Scott III rushed for 125 yards.
Saskatchewan chases its fifth Grey Cup title in franchise history. Montreal is looking for its ninth CFL championship but second in three years after upsetting the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 28-24 in 2023.
Montreal again enters the game as the Grey Cup underdog. The Alouettes were second in the East Division with a 10-8 record while Saskatchewan finished atop the West Division with a CFL-best 12-6 mark.
The game is a sellout at Princess Auto Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 32,343. All nine of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers home games this year were sold out.
And the weather should co-operate for both spectators and the teams. After a daytime high of 2 C and sunshine Sunday, the forecast at kickoff is for -4 C with winds between eight and 12 kilometres an hour.
Rapper mgk (formerly Machine Gun Kelly) will be the halftime headliner, his first-ever performance in Winnipeg. Canadian rock group Our Lady Peace will perform in the kickoff show while Manitoba’s Catie St. Germain will sing the national anthem.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov, 15, 2025.
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press
