Former Roughriders OL Chris Best bled green after being punched in the face
All it took was a punch in the face for Chris Best to bleed green.
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Once a Calgary Stampeders season ticket holder, Best — a longtime Saskatchewan Roughriders offensive lineman — remembers a play from his early CFL days that made him dislike the team he grew up cheering for.
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'My first pre-season game, I got punched in the face by a Stampeder and that was the end of all my Stamp allegiances,' said Best, a Calgary native who spent 10 seasons with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
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After being drafted by the Roughriders in the first round, fourth overall, in the 2005 Canadian Football League draft, Best played 114 regular season games over a decade with the Green and White.
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He was part of two Grey Cup championships (2007 and 2013) and this week, Best was announced as part of the Class of 2025 to be inducted into the Roughriders Plaza of Honour.
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Best will formally be enshrined with longtime assistant coach Alex Smith Sr. on Sept. 13 during a halftime ceremony at Mosaic Stadium when the Roughriders host the Montreal Alouettes. Former running back Steve Molnar, whose 2024 posthumous induction is being deferred to 2025, will join the duo.
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'This is an incredible honour, for sure,' said Best, the team's most outstanding offensive lineman in 2011. 'You always kind of dream about that.
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'I was lucky, I played with a bunch of guys who went into the plaza, and I remember going to the plaza dinners, and what a big deal it was. So, this is incredible.'
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After being drafted out of the University of Waterloo, Best went back to school for two years before making the jump to the CFL in 2007.
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'It certainly was a battle of the start but it was also a heck of a time to learn from some incredible players I played with,' said Best. 'We had a bunch of vets coming in and I remember when I first got drafted in 2005, I told the GM at the time, Roy Shivers, I was like, 'I'm going to school for two years.'
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'He's like, 'That's fine. We've got a bunch of vets. We can wait for you.'
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'So I certainly would have loved to play more my first two years out there, but I learned a whole lot from a really good group of people. I don't know if I would have had that same success if I had immediately jumped out there without necessarily knowing what I was doing as much. So, you know, a little seasoning may have helped me there. And it definitely kept me out there for a long time. I think it all worked out in the end.'
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In 2007, Best was part of a championship-winning team in his first season with the Roughriders alongside Smith, who remains the longest-serving coach in club history having worked for the Riders from 1997 to 2012.
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