Calgary weighs McMahon Stadium future as Grey Cup heads to the building between Elks and Alouettes

The Story

Calgary has begun discussing whether the 2026 Grey Cup could be the last staged at McMahon Stadium, with the 66-year-old venue hosting the Canadian Football League championship game Sunday between the Edmonton Elks and the Montreal Alouettes.

McMahon has been home to the Calgary Stampeders since 1960, and the stadium also served as the site of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Winter Olympics. Montreal’s Percival Molson Memorial Stadium, built in 1915, has been the home of the Alouettes since 1998.

The McMahon Stadium Society chair, Steve Allan, said replacement parts for the stadium’s seats are no longer available, and he described the building as past its prime. “McMahon Stadium is pretty tired, I'm afraid,” Allan said. “It's time for a new building.”

Allan said crews have been “trying to patch up an old dog” for years, but that “the guts of the building are just too old.” He also said salvaging seats from the Saddledome could be a short-term option until a replacement is ready.

The Calgary Stampede has hired a firm to study whether field sports could be added to GMC Stadium, which currently seats 17,000 and sits just south of Scotia Place. Stampede executive vice-president of park development and operations Jim Laurendeau said the group is looking at adapting its current facility for professional football and possibly other field sports such as soccer over time. “We recognize that CFL football can't stay at McMahon Stadium indefinitely,” Laurendeau said.

The City of Calgary is also conducting a feasibility study on “major sports and event infrastructure in Calgary.” In a statement, the city said the work is early-stage due diligence and does not represent a decision or commitment to build a new facility, and that the study will help assess potential needs, opportunities, risks and next steps.

McMahon is on University of Calgary land and home to the university’s football team, but the university has said it wants to move on. About $23 million has been raised to build a 5,000-seat multi-purpose university and community sport stadium on campus.

Faculty of Kinesiology dean Nick Holt said McMahon has played a significant role in Calgary’s sports landscape for decades and remains safe and operational, while also noting that the stadium is nearing the end of its life. “At the same time, McMahon is an aging asset approaching the end of its life,” Holt said, adding that partners recognize the need to move beyond incremental investments.

Allan said new turf installed last year at McMahon has an eight-year lifespan, and he said his group does not want to keep installing turf again, citing a need for a building for the start of the 2033 season.

Stampeders president Jay McNeil said the timeline needs to move quickly for the team’s operations and fan experience. “Our life here at McMahon has to change and it has to change quickly,” he said, adding that fans’ expectations are higher than in the past and that the venue offers limited seating options.

McNeil and Allan both pointed to broader questions about long-term planning, including which parties would fund and build any new stadium. Allan said the stadium sits on valuable land, and the city also owns a parcel beside it.

CSEC president Robert Hayes said feasibility studies are welcome and that the Stampeders need a new facility. “The short answer would be we need a new facility for the Calgary Stampeders Football Club,” Hayes said. “There's no question about that.” Hayes also said the organization is a tenant for nine regular-season games and uses Scotia Place for practice and other days during the year.

Laurendeau said the Stampede hopes to have an answer by summer 2027 about how a football field could be incorporated into a site that is currently used for rodeo and chuckwagon racing.

He said, in part, that there is “half of a stadium” that looks onto the rodeo field of play and questioned why a second building could not be added on the other side to create a football field, while acknowledging the engineering challenges involved. Laurendeau said “of course, like anything… there's lots to it.”