Edmonton Elks to Celebrate QB Ricky Ray’s Hall of Fame Induction with Helmet Decal

The Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Elks are celebrating one of the team’s all-time great quarterbacks by wearing a special helmet decal in their game tonight.

Edmonton’s all-time passing leader, Ricky Ray, will be inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in Hamilton, Ontario, on Friday evening. That same night, the Elks visit the Saskatchewan Roughriders at Mosaic Stadium in Regina. To honour Ray, the Elks will wear a decal on their helmets with Ray’s number 15 in that game.

“When I first got to Edmonton, seeing (old highlights) about the league and the organization inspired me to want to be a part of that, and for me to go out there and experience some of those things I saw in those highlight films, it’s just very fulfilling and rewarding and satisfying,” Ray told GoElks.com.

“Hopefully I was able to leave a little bit of an impact in the CFL and maybe inspire another young player who is coming up to want to be able to experience that.”

The decal itself is a green oval bordered in gold, with a gold number 15 inside. It mimics the team’s primary logo from Ray’s time in Edmonton, from 2002 to 2011.

Ray won two Grey Cup championships with Edmonton, in 2003 and 2005; he was named Grey Cup MVP in the latter win. He is the team’s all-time leader in completions (3,225), yards (40,351) and touchdowns (210). He spent the 2004 season in the National Football League with the New York Jets before returning to Edmonton.

Ray was Edmonton’s nominee for Most Outstanding Player five times. He had three seasons with at least 5,000 passing yards, and led the CFL in passing yards three times. He was named to Edmonton’s Wall of Honour in 2019.

After leaving Edmonton, Ray played with the Toronto Argonauts from 2012 to 2018. He retired with the third-most completions in CFL history (4,976) and is one of only four CFL players to amass more than 60,000 passing yards.

Other Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductees for 2022 include: