Green is the Colour
Football is the Game
We’re all together and Winning is our aim
So Cheer us on through the sun and rain
Saskatchewan Roughriders is our name
It’s a familiar tune to many CFL football fans across the country. The chorus ends with the line, “Saskatchewan Roughriders is our name.” So, just when and why did Regina’s football team become the Roughriders? As you will see, it’s… well…a bit complicated.
The Regina Rugby Club was founded in 1910. They played in the Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union along with teams in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw. The SRFU joined the Alberta and Manitoba leagues to form the Western Canada Rugby Football Union in 1911.
As early as 1912, the Regina club was being called the Roughriders or Rough Riders. The August 31, 1915 edition of the Regina Leader references the Regina Rough Riders as they kick off the 1915 season.
The early Regina team had a question of identity not only when it came to the club name but also around deciding which team colours to use. The original colours of the Regina Rugby Club were purple and gold. Then, blue and white. Finally, they settled on red and black. In an alternative universe is there a team called the Saskatchewan RedBlacks?
After 1915, the “Rough Riders” moniker seemed to fall out of favour. The local newspaper went back to referring to the team simply as the Regina Rugby Club. But, in 1924, according to official team history, the Regina Rugby Club formally became the Regina Roughriders. After the Second World War, the team became the Saskatchewan Roughriders to represent the entire province and eventually changed their team colours to the familiar green and white.
So, what is a “Rough Rider” or “Roughrider” anyway? The most likely answer is that it is a reference to the trainers or “rough riders” who broke wild horses on the Prairies. There is a strong suggestion that the Roughrider name was chosen to pay homage to the “rough riders” of the North-West Mounted Police.
An alternative theory is that the Roughriders were named after future United States president Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Rider cavalry regiment in the Spanish-American War of 1898. However, it’s generally accepted that the Roosevelt/Rough Rider connection is associated more with the Ottawa Rough Riders who played in the East.
Yes, this is where we need to mention that for a long period of time in Canadian football (up to 1996) there were two teams that shared the Rough Riders/Roughriders moniker, each with a distinct yet connected history. This anomoly probably deserves its own blog post at some point.
There is good article about the “Roughriders” name written by Rob Vanstone posted last year on the Sasktchewan Roughriders’ website. Check it out here: https://www.riderville.com/2024/12/09/rob-vanstone-the-name-game-100-years-of-roughriders/
So cheer us on through the sun and rain…Saskatchewan Roughriders is our name!
This is the fourth of a series of posts that will explore the stories behind the names of the existing Canadian Football League teams. See the previous post on the Edmonton Elks.
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