The story behind the photo: Winnipeg Blue Bombers alumnus Brandon Alexander By: Joshua Frey-Sam Posted: 10:00 AM CST Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

In this installment of the Story Behind the Photo series, Free Press sports reporter Joshua Frey-Sam takes Winnipeg Blue Bombers alumnus Brandon Alexander down memory lane, with the Bombers legend explaining the story behind three photos from his career.

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Josh: Hey, what’s going on, everybody? Josh Frey-Sam here with the Winnipeg Free Press back with another installment of our Winnipeg Blue Bombers alumni series as a part of our rollout to Grey Cup 112 right here at Princess Auto Stadium.

Happy to be joined by — with a — by a very popular face around these parts, a man who spent all seven of his professional seasons right here in the Manitoba capital, a two time Grey Cup champion and a 2021 CFL All-Star B.A. – Brandon Alexander, man. Thank you very much for joining me.

Brandon: Appreciate you having me. Thank you.

Josh: B.A., the game is pretty simple today. I got three pictures, three different moments from your career. And all I ask of you is to take us on a trip down memory lane if you would.

Brandon: Ok.

Josh: All right, man, let’s get into it. The first one here.

Grey Cup 107, 2019. You guys are playing the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a runaway victory, that one was. I’ll give that one to you to look over. Take me back to that one. That was a special day not only for you, your teammates, the organization, the fan base. That was a huge day in this in this organization’s history.

Brandon: Yeah.

Josh: Take me back to that day. What do you remember most from that Grey Cup?

Brandon: Well, I remember the journey of it. We had to go through a gauntlet of a schedule, like we had to go into Calgary and beat the beast of the West with Bo Levi (Mitchell) over there. And then we had to go into Sask. and beat Sask. and then had to beat the best team in the CFL at a time, which was Hamilton. And we got it. We got there. And man, I mean, this picture says a lot, though.

Josh: Yeah.

Brandon: We got there and we just knew as soon as we stepped on that field, we just knew that it was — it was our time, you know, and from the first three series, like the first three series, I believe we got a sack on one series. Then we had a sack fumble on the other series. And then I end up catching the interception on the third series. And it just kept rolling. It kept rolling. And yeah, that was a great one. That was a good one.

Josh: No doubt. I mentioned this was a significant day in the franchise’s history. This ended a 29-year drought —

Brandon: Yes, did it.

Josh: — for the organization and the Grey Cup. This was also a significant day for you personally, because this was your first Grey Cup ever. I mean, this is — you don’t know if you’re gonna get back to this spot ever again in your career. This is effectively the biggest game of your life. What is the feeling like pre-game in the locker room? I mean, moments away from kickoff, like, what are you feeling in leading up into that and into kickoff?

Brandon: Well, we — the thing was, I don’t think anybody was really nervous, though. I think we were ready to go because we already went through what we went through to get there. And it’s like, ‘We’re here now, so we might as well do what we need to do.’

Like I said, we — we went through a gauntlet of a schedule and we just hit the ground running towards the end of the season. And we just kept it going, you know, and everybody had that one goal.

And yeah, we just knew. We just knew. And yeah, I’m glad, I remember this. I remember all my guys that I did it with. Now that was a fun time.

Josh: Fun game to be a part of.

Brandon: For sure.

Josh: You guys ran away with that one.

Brandon: For sure. For sure, we did.

Josh: I’ll get that one back from you. Let’s move on to picture number two here. And this — is we’re going from in game to now post-game here. We’ve got the great — well, actually, this is the post, post-game, if you would. 2019 Grey Cup parade.

Brandon: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Josh: And this is a picture — this is a fantastic picture. You mingling with the fans, high-fiving fans, obviously in celebration.

Brandon: Oh, yeah.

Josh: I talked about how — you talked about how big of a day that was, obviously, for the organization. Could you sense how much that win meant to the fan base?

Brandon: Oh, yeah. As soon as we got off the plane, we came back here in Winnipeg. The whole airport was filled with people. Like they — all you hear: ‘O’Shea, O’Shea, O’Shea, O’Shea, O’Shea.’ It was — it was crazy. And everybody was there, right? And then we have the parade.

I feel like everybody in the city took off work or like their bosses said, ‘Listen, y’all can go to the parade.’ It had to be almost everybody in the city at that parade.

Everybody’s outside. It’s minus something degrees out there. Nobody cares. You know, we’re driving around in the trucks and things. And everybody is outside, like this — that’s how I knew that this was so important because like you just said, like, this broke a 29-year streak of not having the Grey Cup. And so you can tell, you can tell that Winnipeg, the Blue Bombers, not only just Winnipeg’s team, but it’s a Manitoba team.

You know, everybody showed up for that — for that day. You know, even if they didn’t show up for that game in Calgary, they showed up to that there.

So like I said, I think they, I think their boss is saying, ‘Listen, take the day off. You get paid today. You can go to the parade.’

Josh: Right.

Brandon: It had to be about 40-50,000 people there. It was crazy.

Josh: No, that’s — that’s — it was a fantastic day. No doubt about it. Great atmosphere. I bet you — you spent seven seasons here and you’re still around, though. You’re obviously, again, a popular face in this, in this community. You’ve ingrained yourself in the community. You were helping around the team this year. You were — you’re obviously still with the football club, helping around in the community amateur scene.

What was it about your time in Winnipeg that’s kind of kept you coming back? Because not everybody stays with the — with the team that kind of — in the CFL that they got, that they got selected by.

Brandon: Well, I just enjoy my coaches. I enjoyed the people that I was playing with. It was a real camaraderie, you know, it’s a real group, a real brotherhood in there. Like we really hang out with each other outside of the building. We really enjoy each other’s company. Like we go out to eat. We go out to play games. We go out and do X, Y and Z together, you know, and we make sure that we had each other’s back, not only here, but outside as well.

So that’s the reason why I kept coming back and I’m just so fortunate that they wanted me back as well. You know, so a lot of people can’t say that they only played for one team, you know, for an extended period of time. And so, you know, like I said, I’m blessed to be able to do that. And yeah. Yeah.

Josh: That’s great, man. Let’s move on to the final picture here that we have of you. Now this one, I have a feeling — we’re going to put an optimistic spin on this obviously because there’s a lot to be optimistic about, obviously from this one.

This is after the 2021 Grey Cup victory. You guys hopping off of the plane. This is your second win in a row coming off of — now, obviously you’re in crutches here. This is a game you started. You obviously weren’t able to finish it, but you made an impact in the time that you did play here.

Take me back. I want to ask you about first in game. You were such an elite competitor during your playing days. How do you not keep yourself or how do you keep yourself from going not going crazy when you’re on the sideline watching that in the game?

Because obviously you want to do what you do best and lay the boom and make interceptions and stuff like that on the field. How do you kind of what was the feeling on the sideline for you there?

Brandon: Well, I’ll tell you what: you know, I finished this game.

Josh: Right.

Brandon: You know, I finished this game.

Josh: That’s right. That’s right.

Brandon: So, literally, on the last play of the Grey Cup, we’re in overtime.

Josh: Yes.

Brandon: And I see Kyrie (Wilson) intercepting the football for us to win the game. And I run over there and I jump, and that’s when I did it.

Josh: Ok. Ok. Ok.

Brandon: So, I played the whole game.

Josh: Right.

Brandon: You know. And it was — the crazy part about it is, after that, you know, I’m jumping around like I’m hurting. I knew I did something. And the two people that was next to me was (head athletic therapist) Al(ain Couture) and coach Osh. And they’re — and I’m telling them, like, you know, ‘I did something to my leg.’

My leg is half bent like this. And Al says, ‘well, can you straighten it?’ So I put everything in it and it popped back in. And so they looked at me and I looked at them just like that. And I just ran. I ran.

Josh: Really?

Brandon: I celebrated. I got on the stand. I held the Cup. I did all that stuff. And then even afterwards, like we celebrated afterwards, like I’m moving around, feeling good.

And then after the celebration, like it swelled up on me and then that was it.

Josh: Right. After the adrenaline kind of wore off, you started feeling it a little bit more. And that’s on me. I actually thought that happened in game, which is — no, that’s that’s, that’s pretty incredible.

I want to know, though, the second one in comparison to the first, how does — how did those two compare for you personally?

Brandon: Well, the feel-good story is the 2019 one. You know, it was a lot of adversity that we had to go through. Like we started off — if I’m not mistaken — we started off 5-0, 6-0, you know, and then we just hit a wall of injuries.

Like it was just bang, bang, bang, bang. And we were – win one here, lose one here, win one here, lose two here. And then later on in the season, we just found it.

In 2021, me, personally, I knew that we were going to win when we came back because it was after the COVID year. We came in and we had to stay at the Canad Inns. And when we got there, everybody is like — what was hugging was like — we’re glad to have this opportunity. Everybody was just so excited about it.

And from that moment, I knew I was like, you know what, this is going to be the year. And so the year played out like that. Not one time did I feel like — like we weren’t the guys. And so everybody, like, everybody played well that year. And it was a shorter season. I think it was only, what 14 games?

Josh: I think that’s right.

Brandon: So it was a shorter season. And then it ran all the way to December, though. I think it was like December — I can’t even remember the Grey Cup (day), but it was in December. But I just knew that whole year that we were the team.

And that’s the difference between the two. 2019, it was a lot of struggle, a lot of hardship, a lot of those things. And 2021, we didn’t really have a lot of injuries and everybody was on the field. And we just — we hit the ground rolling immediately and didn’t stop. That’s the two differences.

Josh: You guys are rolling in that season, no doubt about it. B.A., that’s all I have for you, man. Hey, I appreciate your time. Thank you for joining us on this.

That’s gonna do it for our latest installment of our Winnipeg Blue Bomber alumni series as a part of our rollout to Grey Cup 112 right here at Princess Auto Stadium, ladies and gentlemen.