There’s a lot of Labour Day history between the Stampeders and Eskimos, but there’s more to the Red and White’s tradition on the September holiday than the rivalry with their provincial rivals.

As a matter of fact, the first Labour Day game was the first regular-season contest the Stampeders ever played. The historic Sept. 2, 1946, game was against the Regina Roughriders at Calgary’s Mewata Stadium and the Stamps won 9-0.

Two years later on Labour Day, the Stamps met the Roughriders in Regina and won again, this time by a 14-8 score.

It was in 1949 that the now-familiar Stampeders-Eskimos Labour Day matchup was born. The Alberta teams played five straight years in Edmonton before the series was abandoned.

In the five-year period between 1954 and 1958, the Stamps played the Winnipeg Blue Bombers twice on Labour Day and got the holiday Monday off on three occasions.

Then, in 1959, the rivalry with the Eskimos was renewed. This time, Calgary was the site of the game and, with a few exceptions, it’s in this form that the tradition continues to exist today.

Those exceptions are:

• From 1964-68, the Stamps played at home every Labour Day but did not face the Eskimos. Instead, Calgary hosted the Blue Bombers three times and the Toronto Argonauts and BC Lions once each.
• In 1973, the CFL took a break from the Stamps-Esks routine and sent the Bombers to McMahon Stadium on Labour Day.
• The last time Labour Day did not feature a Calgary-Edmonton matchup was 1981, when the Argos instead provided the opposition for the Stamps.

This year’s game marks the 53rd consecutive season a Labour Day game has been played in Calgary and the 61st time overall the Stamps have been in action on this holiday.

Calgary has a lifetime 31-28-1 record on Labour Day — 20-28-1 against Edmonton and undefeated against the Blue Bombers (6-0), the Roughriders (2-0), the Argonauts (2-0) and the Lions (1-0).

Here is the full list of Labour Day games: