One of Don Hewitt’s core memories from three years as the furry, minuscule mascot of the Saskatchewan Roughriders in the late 1970s can be summed up in two letters — P.U.
“They’d wash the suit once at the end of the season, and it just stunk,” Hewitt said of the rancid Gainer the Gopher getup.
“They’d ask you to go to different functions, like a Grey Cup thing, and walk into a room with respectable people and whatnot, and it just stunk so bad.”
Canadian football fans will get to see a lot of the gamey but lovable rodent as Roughriders spokeswoman Arielle Zerr confirmed Gainer will travel to Winnipeg ahead of Sunday’s battle for the Grey Cup with the Montreal Alouettes.
In the almost 50 years since his introduction, Gainer has been in everything from commercials to promos with Premier Scott Moe. He once was banned from the playing field and had a controversial redesign.
And to top it off, the gopher from Parkbeg, Sask., technically isn’t a gopher. His suit is based on the Richardson’s ground squirrel.
The year was 1976, and the Regina-based Roughriders had hosted the Edmonton Eskimos in the Western Final, and felt it would do some good to have a mascot. They temporarily enlisted the help of Ralph the Dog from the Calgary Stampeders before deciding on their own in 1977.
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Hewitt was working at CKCK-TV when his phone rang.
“(Gord Staseson) said, ‘What are you doing tomorrow night?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know, might go to the Roughrider game,’” Hewitt recalls.
“He goes, ‘Well, you’re going into a gopher suit, and you’re going to run out and cheer for the Roughriders.’”
So without question, Hewitt donned the fur suit, was given a grand introduction by the game-day announcer and ran out onto the green of Taylor Field, the team’s former home.
And the crowd went … mild.
“I ran out to absolute silence,” he said. “Nobody responded, really. In terms of the fans, there was very little response.”
Hewitt said to help him out, Donald Jacques, who portrayed Ralph the Dog for the Stampeders, was flown to Regina and gave mascot lessons, teaching the former reporter and TV personality how to engage a crowd in the days before jumbotrons.
Fans eventually grew to love Gainer, but there were some exceptions.
During one game, he flattened into a pancake the trademark straw fedora of former Regina mayor Henry Baker. In another, he got into a tussle with Bonhomme, the snowy-smiling ambassador of the Quebec Winter Carnival.
Years after Hewitt hung up the costume, the Stampeders — the Calgary team that served as jumping board for Gainer — barred Gainer from the field during a 2006 game because they felt he would distract from their own mascot.
More than 10 years later, a new, slimmer Gainer with bright green eyes drew criticism from fans. Within a week, the club tweaked the look back to the familiar.
Hewitt, who is mostly retired but fills in for a Roughriders-themed radio show, said he has not been able to speak to most of the mascot actors who came after him.
Asked what he would say to the current actor, he encouraged them to love and embrace the team — even during rough times.
He also encouraged them to remember that Gainer’s autograph is a paw print.
“Gophers can’t read or write,” he said.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
