The Labour Day Classic is a particular week of the Canadian Football League schedule that is played over the Labour Day weekend. This particular weekend, typically the tenth or eleventh week in the season, is known for its fixtures that do not change from year to year, unlike other weeks of the CFL schedule. It is also only one of two weeks (the Thanksgiving Day Classic being the other) in the CFL schedule that the league plays on a Monday.
As of 2007, the current Labour Day weekend match ups involve the Winnipeg Blue Bombers visiting the Saskatchewan Roughriders on the day before Labour Day, while on Labour Day itself, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are at home against the Toronto Argonauts while the Edmonton Eskimos visit the Calgary Stampeders.
Although not associated with the Labour Day Classic, the week after Labour Day often has a repeat match-up of the Bombers vs Roughriders (see Banjo Bowl), Stampeders vs Eskimos (see Battle of Alberta), and Tiger-Cats vs Argonauts, (a rivalry which begain in 1873 ) with home field advantage now to the team that did not have it during the Labour Day weekend.
As the league has been increasing in popularity in recent years, print ads for the Labour Day Classic try to evoke the tradition of watching Canadian football on the last weekend of summer. Slogans include "Long Live the Rivalries" and "Watch the Team You Love Play the Team You Love to Hate".
The rivalries between these pairings are long-standing, based on both the physical proximity of the competing cities and the relatively small number of teams within a league that has existed for so long. Fans of each team regularly claim their matchup to be the Labour Day Classic, as if there was only one game.
The BC Lions and Montréal Alouettes are traditionally not a part of the Labour Day Classics (although in the past Montréal has played Ottawa), and usually have bye weeks during this week. Nevertheless, in 2007, the Lions and Alouettes will play each other on the Labour Day weekend - this will be the first rematch between the teams since the 94th Grey Cup. The Lions-Alouettes rivalry has sometimes been described as a "Coast-to-Coast" rivalry, as BC is the farthest west and Montréal the farthest east of the CFL teams. The Lions and Alouettes are also the two youngest teams in the league.
