Pro football returns to Clarke Stadium on Friday for the first time in decades, for a game that’s meaningless in the Canadian Football League standings but notable for its nostalgia. Nostalgia not only for the former great teams that once called the locale home but for its intimate setting, something that isn’t lost on head coach Mark Kilam, whose Edmonton Elks host the Calgary Stampeders for each side’s final pre-season tune-up game before the 2026 CFL regular season begins next week. The ‘Night at the Knothole,’ a throwback moniker in homage to the team’s former youth Knothole Gang club, starts at 7 p.m. “I hope it’s packed, because I’m not sure why it wouldn’t be,” Kilam said Wednesday after practice at Clarke, where the team has been conducting training camp with their regular home field at Commonwealth Stadium next door is being used for a FIFA World Cup exhibition match between Canada and Uzbekistan on Monday. “It’s going to be a great atmosphere in here. You can basically reach out and touch the stands on either side. That’s going to be awesome, and hopefully we can honour the great teams that played here in the past.” And while fans will no doubt want to relive Clarke’s golden years – the 1950s version of the team won three Grey Cups in a row, while the 1970s edition was rounding into its five-Cups-in-a-row form by the time it departed for Commonwealth – Kilam said the game, like last weekend’s exhibition tilt in B.C., is primarily about evaluating players. “We’re focused on ourselves,” he told media. “In a regular season game, you’re scheming personnel, you’re scheming tendencies, you’re scheming all that kind of stuff. That’s not what we’re doing. We want to come out here (and) function. “We’ve watched (the Stampeders’) film, as far as their preseason film goes. We know who they are as a football team, but both sides are pretty vanilla in what they do. It’s just about execution.” Veteran offensive lineman David Beard, who grew up in Sherwood Park, remembers lining up on Clarke’s gridiron for games with Bev Facey High School’s Falcons and for workouts with the University of Alberta Golden Bears. “It’ll be cool to have an official game out here. This would be my first as a pro,” Beard said. “I was even thinking about some of the older fans that we have who get to appreciate coming back. It’s maybe not exactly what it used to look like, but certainly the location, a little nostalgia there, for sure.” The Elks called the original version of Clarke Stadium home from their inaugural campaign in 1949 until 1978, when they moved into their neighbouring current home following that summer’s Commonwealth Games. The stadium, which seated 25,500 spectators in its final years of CFL use, was first constructed in 1938 and was named for former mayor Joseph Clarke, who had helped get it built while in office. It was torn down to make way for today’s version of Clarke, which was built for the 2001 World Track & Field Championships that also saw extensive renovations and additions to Commonwealth. The 5,100-seat Clarke facility, now used for several minor sports, was home to the defunct FC Edmonton pro soccer club until 2022. The Elks have added more seating to Clarke and have expanded its concourse for Friday’s game. Following Monday’s Canada-Uzbekistan friendly, crews will convert Commonwealth’s temporary grass field to artificial turf in time for their regular-season home opener on June 20 against the Montreal Alouettes.
