Looking Back at the Top 5 Labour Day Games at Tim Hortons Field

Labour Day. Two words, three syllables, hundreds of memories.

Around here it’s a Classic Day. A very colourful Day: black and gold, and two shades of blue.  It is Hamilton’s time: the day most associated with the Canadian city most associated with Labour and hard work, diligence and frugality. And the day most associated with Hamilton teams winning. The game, and the winning, goes a lot farther back than 1950 the start of the modern CFL but since that year, when the old tigers merged with the old wildcats to form the new Tiger-Cats, there have been 54 games on Labour day between the Ticats and Argos with 37 victories going to Hamilton, 16 to Toronto and one lonely, unsatisfying tie.

They used to say that summer ends and the CFL really begins on Labour Day, and  like most clichés, it’s founded on certain truths but the realities have evolved. Yes, the following day is usually the first day of school and that means the end of summer for anyone K-to-12, But climate change means September is more of a summer month and the CFL begins in the spring now. And while a team or two can usually change its fortunes after the September long weekend they’ve only got a half-season to do it. 

This Labour Day also marks the 10th anniversary of Tim Hortons Field, a stadium built for an international games—the 2015 Pan Am Games—on the same site as a the previous stadium built for an international games–the 1930 British empire Games –but soon known mostly as the home of the Hamilton football team. A home that, no matter what the respective records, was almost always an impenetrable fortress when the Argos come to visit on the first Monday of September. As we’ve all said, you don’t know this city or this region until you know Labour Day at the corner of Melrose and Cannon. The Ticats’ stadium has always been Hamilton’s de facto town square and that’s particularly acute on Labour Day.

So, to celebrate, we’re going to look at the top five Labour Day Classics played at Tim Hortons Field: Okay, there have been only nine so far but you’ll get the drift.  In a few days, we’ll also look at the best Ticat-Argos Labour Day game ever played. Anywhere: Civic, Ivor Wynne, Tim Hortons, maybe even the HAAA.

We’ll do this in reverse order and remember this is a personal opinion. If you’ve got a different order on this list, or on the one that dates back to 1950, let us and our social media people know in the comments section.

No. 5 Sept. 7, 2015: Hamilton 42, Toronto 12

This was the only time in the 21st century that both teams came into Labour Day with a winning record, as they were each 6-3, although neither went to the Grey Cup that year. The Ticats were coming off their first loss ever at Tim Hortons Field after Montreal had beaten them the previous week to snap their 10-game streak at their still-new stadium. However, this one was over early as the Ticats scored into the legendary Tim Hortons Field stiff wind in the first quarter and led 27-1 by the half. The Ticat’s offensive line, which had given up six sacks a few days earlier against Montreal,  provided superb coverage for Zach Collaros who was the runaway leader at the season’s halfway point for the CFL Player of the Year but was injured two weeks later and lost for the season. He threw for 400 yards and four touchdowns. Trevor Harris, who’d been Collaros’s roommate and close friend in Toronto two years earlier, threw for only 211 yards.

No. 4 Sept. 4, 2017: Hamilton 24, Toronto 22.

The Ticats were staggering at 0-8, the third time they’d come into Labour Day at 0-8 or worse. June Jones had replaced Kent Austin as head coach and installed Jeremiah Masoli at quarterback replacing Zach Collaros, the hero of a a couple of previous Labour Day Classics. And Speedy Banks was added to the full-time receiving corps. There was a 120-minute weather delay and the game didn’t end until 11:30 p. Jones successfully challenged for pass interference late in the game and that set up C.J. Gable’s winning touchdown plunge with 2:30 to go. Lirim Hajrullahu, later a Ticat, had a chance to tie it with 30 seconds left but his 37-yard field goal attempt went left for a single point. Ricky Ray completed 34 passes for 325 yards and Masoli, was a less formidable 19-for-33 and 219 yards but 64 of those were on a touchdown pass to Banks. The Ticats rallied and almost made the playoffs. 

No. 3, Sept 5, 2016:    Ticats 49, Argos 36.

Neither team was good that year, as both came into the game at 4-5. In the early going, the Ticats couldn’t tackle or cover and incurred two fumbles, an interception and a blocked punt, turning an early Hamilton lead into a 27-7 deficit and the crowd was booing. But soon the Ticats revived, trailed 30-17 at the half, and Zach Collaros, by then a third-year Ticat, began marching the team with current Ticats Audio Network colour commentator Luke Tasker making a great catch right at the goal post to eventually cut the lead to five points. The defence dug in: Ricky Ray was clobbered by Adrian Tracy at the Ticat two, leading to Courtney Stephen’s critical interception. Chad Owens, playing in his 100th CFL game, scored the go-ahead touchdown for the Ticats and the 49-36 win was cemented by an Emmanuel Davis pick-six. Quarterbacks Zach Collaros and Ricky Ray combined for over 700 yards and seven touchdowns,  four from Collaros, and CJ Gable ran for 135 yards including a long touchdown

No. Sept. 2, 2019:  Ticats 38, Argos 27

This was soooo Ticats-Argos. It was one of those games which defined the almost mystical—until the Grey Cup loss—2019 campaign, Orlondo Steinauer’s first year at the helm and the best regular-season finish (15-3) by far by a Ticat team. It had become Dane Evans’ team after Jeremiah Masoli had gone down with injury and it was all Argos in the first half, all Evans in the second. The Ticats scored first but then the Argos dominated 24-3 over the next stretch to lead 24-11 at the half and it probably could have been worse.  There was an early brawl and the Ticats lost  Frankie Williams and Tunde Adeleke, 40 percent of their secondary, to the ensuing ejections. Then Evans went to work. He’d been sacked five times in the first half and completed only 12 passes but he threw 19 straight completions to open the second half, finish with 442 yards, 167 of those to Bralon Addison who had two touchdowns. It was the first time in 22 years the Ticats started at 9-2 and the Argos dropped to 1-9. But as we’ve always said,  won-lost records don’t usually count on Labour Day.

No. 1 Sept. 1, 2014: Hamilton 13, Toronto 12

Well, you couldn’t make this up. And a lot of things had to come together exactly as they did for the very first game at Tim Hortons Field to feature the Argos against the Ticats on Labour Day. So History took note strolled in and proclaimed out loud “This One’s Mine”. And we all look back and say ‘Of course!’

The Pan Am Stadium suffered so many interminable construction delays that it could not meet its ready-by date. So the Ticats, who’d already scheduled two games at McMaster, had to move a third there when it became agonizingly obvious there was no chance that their new digs would be ready in time to play the Calgary Stampeders—and

Bo Levi Mitchell–on August 16 as planned. Even 48 hours before Labour Day it was feared that the Argo game would have to be rescheduled for the night after Labour Day  In Toronto. Even when it was cleared to open, the new stadium was still only 75 percent completed and access was limited. But that only made it more delicious. The Ticats were 1-6 but had some close losses, Zach Collaros who was recovering from a concussion played his first game in 58 days and threw for 317 yards and the Ticats finally played their first real home game after 674 days and 32 games on the road in Guelph or in Westdale and it was against, of course, a rival they’d been playing for over 100 years. On Labour Day.

The Ticats went on to go undefeated at Tim Hortons Field the rest of the season to overcome that 1-6 start and come within a controversial call on Speedy Banks’ kick return of winning the Grey Cup.

Got a better football story than that? I haven’t.