Edmonton Elks expecting big crowd for West Final against B.C. Lions

Photo: Timothy Matwey/3DownNation. All rights reserved.

The Edmonton Elks are expecting their largest crowd in years when they host the B.C. Lions in the West Final on Saturday.

A team spokesperson told 3DownNation in a text message on Tuesday that around 27,000 tickets have already been distributed, and close to 2,000 tickets are selling each day. The club believes 35,000 is a reasonable attendance projection, but isn’t ruling out 40,000 considering the weather forecast calls for a high of eight degrees and sun.

The last time Edmonton had more than 32,000 fans at a game was September 7, 2024, when 32,144 attended the team’s annual rematch against the Calgary Stampeders. The team hasn’t surpassed 35,000 fans since September 7, 2019 when 40,113 fans attended the same matchup.

“We need our fans in this game, it’s a big game. [B.C. is] favoured in our home barn. The only way you can flip that in those tight games is your crowd can be a difference-maker,” franchise quarterback Cody Fajardo told the media on Tuesday.

“They run a lot of high-tempo stuff on offence, they like to go fast, and the way that you combat that is a loud crowd. A loud crowd creates chaos in communication, and it’s hard to go fast. It takes away something that they like to do and it’ll help our defence tremendously.

“I’ve been calling on Elks Nation to come out and show out in this game because that’s going to help push us to the edge. When the game’s on the line and they need a score to win the game and they’ve gotta communicate and go fast, our fans can be the difference.”

The Elks enjoyed by far the biggest year-over-year attendance increase in the CFL this season with average crowds of 22,421 — a 17.7 percent boost. This will be their first home playoff game since 2015, which is also the last time they won the Grey Cup.

Once the league’s perennial attendance leaders, Edmonton saw fan support collapse in recent years for a variety of reasons, including a record 22-game home losing streak. The team averaged crowds of 35,000 as recently as 2010 and 30,000 in 2018.

The club’s players have noticed increased support when walking around Edmonton.

“I love seeing green and gold in this city. The last couple of years, we’d walk around and it was all the blue and orange, which is awesome, the Oilers are amazing, but it’s nice to be able to walk around the city and see the green and gold banners hanging up, the community excited about football, and excited to come to the games,” said running back Justin Rankin.

“It’s uplifting because I’ve always wanted to see the upper bowl filled up. I think it’s always cool to see the upper bowl filled up because it hasn’t been filled up in so long, so to be part of a change in any organization, it always feels good. Especially an organization that’s been historically bad for some years, and now we get to see the upside of it and what this city brings when the Green and Gold are at their best. It feels amazing.”

Head coach Mark Kilam is hopeful that the added noise could help slow a vaunted Lions attack, which is led by reigning CFL Most Outstanding Player Nathan Rourke.

“It’s something that we’ve been building towards. I think Edmonton fans are looking forward to it, too,” he said. “Football is a game where the fans can make a difference. Two things that B.C. likes to do are tempo and empty, and that’s hard to do when the crowd is very loud, and that’s something that we want to encourage Edmonton to do to negatively affect them when they are on the field.”

The B.C. Lions opened as short favourites for the West Final, though the Elks are now short favourites. When asked about pundits picking the Lions to win, Fajardo smiled and took the high road.

“There’s a lot of fuel on this fire, and I’ll let the week kind of take care of itself,” he said. “We’ll see how this game goes.”

The Edmonton Elks (13-5) will visit the B.C. Lions (10-8) for the West Final at Commonwealth Stadium on Saturday, November 7 with kickoff scheduled for 6:30 p.m. ET. The teams met twice during the regular-season with both teams winning at home.

The game will be broadcast on TSN and RDS in Canada and CFL+ internationally. Radio listeners can tune-in on 730 CKNW (English) or Sher-E-Punjab Radio AM 600 (Punjabi) in Vancouver or 880 CHED in Edmonton.