113th Grey Cup: Dates, Tickets & Venue (Calgary)

November 15 at McMahon

The CFL’s championship comes back to Calgary. The 113th Grey Cup takes place on Sunday, November 15, 2026, at McMahon Stadium. That’s home field for the Calgary Stampeders, and it last hosted the game in 2009.

The two teams are decided by the division finals, which the league plays the weekend before. Until then everyone is guessing. That’s part of the fun, because fans of all nine clubs travel for Grey Cup whether or not their team made it.

The game itself is the end of a longer week. Host cities run a Grey Cup Festival with parties, team fan zones and events in the days before kickoff. The CFL publishes the schedule, the venue information and the ticket links on its official site.

A 1960 stadium in a prairie November

McMahon is no dome. It’s an open concrete bowl that went up quickly in 1960, named for the McMahon brothers who helped pay for it. The seats sit in long banks along both sidelines, and in places they’re bench seating. On a clear day you can see the Rockies to the west.

Mid-November in Calgary usually means daytime temperatures around freezing, and snow is common. A chinook can also blow in warm air off the mountains and make a day surprisingly mild. Fans who’ve done this before plan for both.

• Thermal base layers and a proper winter coat
• Toque, gloves and a scarf or neck warmer
• Warm boots, because concrete floors drain the heat out of your feet
• A seat cushion or blanket, where the stadium’s bag rules allow it

Riding the Red Line to Banff Trail

The CTrain is the easiest way in. McMahon sits right beside Banff Trail station on the Red Line, near Crowchild Trail and 16 Avenue NW, which is the Trans-Canada Highway through the city. From downtown it’s a short, direct ride northwest.

Lions Park and University stations are on the same line, one stop either side, and some fans walk from those to spread out the crowd. On a big game day the trains fill up before and after the game. Regulars expect a packed platform at full time and don’t mind waiting a train or two.

Parking near the stadium is limited, and the roads around Crowchild back up. People driving in from outside the city often park at a station further out and finish the trip by train. Calgary International Airport (YYC) is in the northeast, about a half-hour drive from the stadium when traffic is light.

White hats and a horse in a hotel lobby

Calgary has a big part in why the Grey Cup is a national party and not just a football game. In 1948 Stampeders fans took trains east to Toronto with horses, chuckwagons and pancake breakfasts. The best-known story has a horse ridden into the lobby of the Royal York hotel.

The white cowboy hat came out of that trip. Today Calgary presents a white Smithbilt hat to visiting dignitaries in a short ceremony where they swear to be good Calgarians. On a Calgary Grey Cup weekend you’ll see white hats all over the city, on fans from everywhere.

The trophy itself goes back further. Earl Grey, then Governor General of Canada, donated it in 1909. That makes it one of the oldest trophies in North American professional sport.

How Grey Cup crowds actually do the day

For many fans, wearing team colours matters more than who’s playing. Supporters of teams that didn’t make it still turn up in green, red, gold or blue, and nobody finds that strange. Ribbing between fan bases is loud and nearly always friendly.

• Tailgating and pregame: fans gather near the stadium and in the festival zones hours before kickoff. The food, the music and the costumes are half the reason they came.
• Gates: lineups form well before kickoff, and people dressed in bulky winter layers move through security slowly. Experienced fans leave themselves plenty of time.
• Bags: CFL stadiums have bag restrictions. The current rules are on the official stadium and league pages, and fans travel light to avoid going back to the car.
• Anthem and flyover moments: the crowd stands and goes quiet for “O Canada.” Phones come out for the pregame show.
• Afterward: the platform at Banff Trail gets crowded, so a lot of fans stay in their seats for the trophy presentation and leave once the rush has eased.

Tickets and where the details live

The CFL is the organiser. It publishes the date, the venue information and the official ticket links on its website, and that’s the safest place to buy. Grey Cup tickets often come in packages with festival events. Resale tickets also turn up on secondary sites, where both prices and legitimacy vary.

A ticket’s price depends on where the seat is, and the official listing shows the current options. Because McMahon is open-air, fans pay attention to which side of the stadium their seats are on. Some sections spend more of the afternoon in sun or shade than others.

Around the game: Kensington, downtown and the mountains

Most out-of-town fans make a weekend of it. Downtown Calgary has most of the hotels, along with Stephen Avenue Walk, a pedestrian street lined with restaurants and bars, and the Calgary Tower, which has an observation deck. It’s an easy CTrain ride back to the stadium.

Kensington is the neighbourhood across the Bow River from downtown, built around 10 Street NW and Kensington Road. It’s full of cafés, pubs and independent shops, and it sits between downtown and McMahon. That makes it a common spot for a pregame meal or a drink afterward.

With an extra day, Banff is roughly 90 minutes west along the Trans-Canada Highway. In mid-November the ski season is just starting and the Bow Valley is quiet. Highway conditions can change quickly at that time of year, so people driving out tend to stay flexible about timing.