REGINA — The Saskatchewan Huskies, still dealing with the recent cancer diagnosis of star quarterback Anton Amundrud, will try to focus on football when they face the Montreal Carabins in the Vanier Cup on Saturday.
Amundrud, a 23-year-old fourth-year player from Lloydminster, Alta., was taken off the Huskies’ active roster following Week 5 of the U Sports season with an illness and was later diagnosed with lymphoma.
Huskies head coach Scott Flory said balancing the importance of Saturday’s Canadian university final with the gravity of Amundrud’s illness has been difficult, especially in the moment when he had to break the terrible news to his team. It came as Saskatchewan was preparing for last week’s Mitchell Bowl against Queen’s.
“Last week was really heavy. It was a bit of a blur, to be honest with you,” Flory said. “You tell the team at a team meeting, and then we ate, we sat together, and I’m putting on a preview of what we’re up against with Queen’s, and I’m trying to sell it, and I’m not thinking about Queen’s. The players aren’t thinking about Queen’s. All our thoughts are just with Anton, and so I think we know that as an athlete, you’ve got to compartmentalize things.”
“But it’s hard because there’s bleed and I’m just so proud of the group in that every day has gotten a little bit better.”
Flory couldn’t confirm if Amundrud will be able to attend the game.
Running back Ryker Frank, who will play his last university football game in his hometown of Regina, says he and his teammates have to focus on football Saturday.
“We know the circumstances,” Frank said. “We know it’s a big game for us, but at the same time, in all the craziness this week is going to bring, it’s just another aspect of all that chaos we don’t want to focus on too much.”
Backup Jake Farrell has been under centre since Amundrud left the team in early October and enters the Vanier Cup with a 6-0 record as the starter. He said the last two months have been overwhelming, and he hasn’t been able to reflect on it yet.
“I think that’s kind of an off-season thing when you get to sit back and reminisce,” Farrell said. “I think we’re just all in the moment right now. We have a huge game Saturday and we’re just looking forward to that.”
Farrell is matched against Montreal quarterback Pepe Gonzalez, the Peter Gorman Trophy winner as U Sports football rookie of the year.
The game between the Huskies (10-1) and the Carabins (9-2) is the second matchup between Montreal and Saskatchewan teams in a Canadian football championship in under a week. The Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the Montreal Alouettes 25-17 in the 112th Grey Cup on Sunday.
The angle is not lost on Carabins head coach Marco Iadeluco.
“We definitely would like to win this game for our football team and all the work we’ve put in, but on Monday after the Grey Cup, some of the players came in saying it’s going to be a rematch of the Grey Cup and what happened. So it kind of adds a little bit of a storyline to it,” Iadeluco said.
“We’re excited to be here. We’re playing against a great team. For us, losing to them in 2021 in the last minute of (a national semifinal loss to the Huskies), we want to even up the score. But we’re just excited to be here and we know it’s going to be a great game.”
Carabins receiver Brandon Gourgon says the rematch talk is little more than a footnote.
“We’re just focusing on us. We’ve been doing so many sacrifices all year, missing out on a bunch of opportunities outside of football and work-wise. It’s going to be all about us,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2025.
Brendan McGuire, The Canadian Press
