Thanksgiving Day Classic

This article is about Canadian Football League competition. For the series of National Football League games, see NFL on Thanksgiving Day.

The Thanksgiving Day Classic (French: Classique de jour de l'Action de grâce) is an annual doubleheader held on Thanksgiving in the Canadian Football League (CFL). It is typically one of two days in which the league plays on a Monday afternoon; the other is the Labour Day Classic. Unlike the Labour Day Classic, the teams in the Thanksgiving Day Classic rotate each year. Purolator is the presenting sponsor of the event as of 2022.[1]

The Montreal Alouettes have traditionally been given hosting duties for the opening game. This was originally started in 1997 to compensate for not being part of the Labour Day Classic festivities; Montreal and the various Ottawa franchises normally play on Labour Day when both franchises are active. The Alouettes' permanent hosting of Thanksgiving remained in place after Ottawa returned to the league in 2014. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats played CFL games annually in all but three years between 1958 and 1982, hosting the vast majority of them; Hamilton also hosted three times in four years from 1990 to 1993 and again hosted a Thanksgiving matchup in 2013 due to stadium construction disrupting their hosting of the 2013 Labour Day Classic.

Since the CFL's creation in 1958 to the 2018, there have been 120 games played on Thanksgiving Day.[2] The 2019 CFL season was the first in league history to feature no games on Thanksgiving Day.[3] The league scheduled the Classic for the 2020 CFL season, with one game being played on Thanksgiving Day.[4] However, due to financial issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, the entire 2020 CFL season was cancelled and this game was not played.[5]

Despite Canadian Thanksgiving being a legal holiday in the United States (Columbus Day at the time), none of the CFL's American teams ever played the Thanksgiving Day Classic during the league's presence there in the mid-1990s.

  1. ^ "CFL and Purolator deepen commitment to food security". Canadian Football League. October 6, 2022.
  2. ^ 2018 CFL Game Notes, Calgary at Montreal
  3. ^ "2019 CFL season schedule". cfl.ca. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  4. ^ "2020 CFL season schedule". cfl.ca. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  5. ^ "CFL not to play shortened season in the fall". Canadian Football League. August 17, 2020.