Murray Wood: How sweet it is to see the Riders lift the Grey Cup
Murray Wood says Saskatchewan Roughrider fans don't get to celebrate a Grey Cup win all that often, so when we do, it's ...
When the final whistle blew and the Saskatchewan Roughriders claimed their first Grey Cup in 12 years, Cathy White Ferland didn’t just stand and clap — she exploded out of her seat.
Anyone who has watched a game near her already knows: she cheers loud, she cheers often and she cheers with her whole heart.
But even she wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like to look down at the field and see her son, Saskatchewan Roughriders offensive lineman Logan Ferland, in the middle of it all.
“There he was on the field, playing for the Grey Cup,” she reminisced in an interview with 650 CKOM. “It’s something that he’s wanted for such a long time. And to see your children that close to getting what they want… So proud.”
The cheering was easy. The hard part came afterward, when the field turned into a maze of players, staff, media and family members all trying to find each other.
White Ferland scanned helmets, numbers, shoulder pads, faces — anything that might help her spot him.
“I was looking around going ‘Where is he? Where is he?'” she laughed. “It was well into it before I even got to give him a hug. But just to give him a hug, it was an emotional moment.”
White Ferland said getting to hug her son following the big win was an emotional moment. (Britton Gray/980 CJME)
As the on-field celebrations unfolded, her phone buzzed against her leg over and over.
“A million texts,” she said of the outpouring of support for her son. “People I haven’t heard from in years. And I wasn’t on my phone, because I wanted to be in the moment. But my pocket was vibrating!”
And she meant it. She didn’t take a single picture, didn’t fire off a single reply. She just kept her eyes on the field, and on her boy, refusing to miss the moment.
This celebration came on the heels of another milestone: Logan receiving the 2025 Jake Gaudaur Veterans’ Trophy, an honour recognizing strength, perseverance, courage, comradeship and commitment to community — traits he’s demonstrated through his work with the Saskatchewan Roughriders Foundation and the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital Foundation.
“To see him up there and receive that award… I’m going to have so much journalling that I have to do,” she said proudly. “It’s just an incredible experience.”
White Ferland said that during the game and the following celebrations, she didn’t bother to look at her phone. Instead, she kept her eyes on her son. (Brittany Caffet/650 CKOM)
As for what comes next, White Ferland knows her son well. The adrenaline of a championship doesn’t fade overnight — not for a player, not for a family and certainly not for a province that has been waiting more than a decade for this moment.
“I think it’s going to take him a while to come down from it,” she said. “We’ve had this talk before, and we figure December is when things will finally be settled down enough for him that we could get into that mode of having a normal life again.”
But for now, normal life can wait.
Even in the middle of Grey Cup celebrations, White Ferland’s thoughts keep circling back to something simple: who her son is as a person, both on and off the field.
That, she says, is where the pride really comes from.
“That’s what you hope for when you’re raising your kids,” she said softly. “For them to be a good person. One you can be proud of. Everybody in his family is just so proud of him.”
