Canadian Crossing

CFL Playoffs All Set to Go

For the fifth time ever and the second year in a row, the CFL playoffs have a crossover team. If the 4th-place team in one division has a better record than the 3rd-place team of the other division, that team crosses over to the other division's playoff.

Last year, Edmonton became the first team to win a crossover, beating Winnipeg. This year, the BC Lions -- the only team in the playoffs with a losing record -- will crossover and play at Hamilton. The other first-round game will be Edmonton at Calgary.

Montréal and Saskatchewan earned first-round byes.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calgary Flames tied for first place; Edmonton and BC were tied before the last game. The only team in the league that had no real chance was the Toronto Argonauts.

The trend away from postseason games in domed stadiums is now official. Used to be that Montréal, Toronto, and BC would host postseason games. Toronto misses the playoffs again and BC can't host a game. Montréal plays key games at Olympic Stadium, so the East final will be indoors, but that is the only one. And next year, BC will be back to playing outdoors as BC Place will be rehabbed -- though the facility will be used to open and close the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

The 97th Grey Cup will be November 29 in Calgary. TSN carries the game in Canada; hopefully, Versus will rise to the occasion and simulcast the TSN feed in the United States.

'Colbert Report' puts Canada on notice

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The "Colbert Report" brought Canada into the spotlight, and not favorably. For not letting the U.S. team practice for the 2010 Games in Vancouver at the Richmond (BC) Olympic Oval, Colbert put Canada on notice, a large board filled with people or concepts that should suffer the maximum wrath from the late-night host.

Based on the message board of the "Colbert Report," perhaps the U.S. hasn't been completely denied access.

As much as the press is negative, there is stirred up excitement about the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Canada. 

Then there was this quote, albeit in character:

''It still tragically involves a lot of Canadians,'' the comedian said. ''It's kind of unseemly how many Canadians I'm going to have to be dealing with.''

Two hopeful signs: we are less than 100 days from Vancouver, and those on notice can be withdrawn by Colbert, but the process is long and not easy.

The "Colbert Report" airs Monday-Thursday nights on Comedy Central in the U.S. and the Comedy Channel and CTV in Canada.

Watching Hockey Night in Canada in the U.S.

Admittedly, I have seen HNIC in the U.S. When the MLB preview kicks in during the spring, I did get one weekend of HNIC. But that was in April with NHL Center Ice, and well before the NHL Network took HNIC for itself. And this was way before I purchased a HD set.

But my cable system added the NHL Network, and I have a HD set (only 32"). And I was ready to watch Hockey Night in Canada in style.

Unlike the previous version, there are no Canadian commercials (something I miss). The U.S. commercials are pretty lame and there is no mention of Tim Horton's. Otherwise, it's Hockey Night in Canada.

The coverage actually started in Stockholm, Sweden in the afternoon with Detroit and St. Louis. But the true classic adventure kicked off with the pre-game, followed by Toronto @ Washington. Per recent tradition, the CBC also covers the other Eastern teams in Canada, as amusingly, all three Eastern teams were playing in the United States [Montréal @ Buffalo, Ottawa @ NY Rangers]. The opening West Coast game was Calgary @ Edmonton.

We got Coaches' Corner with Ron McLean and Don Cherry, Coast-to-Coast, Hot Stove, and all the other features, especially After Hours.

Hopefully, HNIC will bloom in its fullest form, though there may be some unusual scheduling being done by the NHL Network. We may literally have to check our local listings. But it felt good to see hockey the way it should be.

Canadian NHL teams on U.S. TV

Looking for Canadian teams on U.S. TV for the NHL? You can have some luck but it depends on how you can access the NHL.

If you are limited to Versus' coverage, you might not even think there are teams outside of Toronto and Montréal. Of the 5 appearances of Canadian teams on Versus, 4 of them involve Toronto or Montréal. Calgary is the exception, being at Chicago.

Oct. 12 8 pm        Calgary at Chicago       
Nov. 30 7 pm        Buffalo at Toronto      
Dec. 14 7:30 pm  Buffalo at Montréal     
Dec. 21 7 pm        Buffalo at Toronto      
Mar. 16 7 pm       Montréal at NY Rangers    

But for some of us, there is much better fortune. My cable system added the NHL Network. Given how much I pay, they should have added something.

The NHL Network is scheduled to carry CBC's Hockey Night in Canada and selected telecasts from TSN. There also may be other games involving Canadian teams carried on a U.S. network that would be available on the NHL Network.

The first HNIC will be Toronto @ Washington followed by the battle of Alberta, Calgary @ Edmonton.

For those who aren't familiar, Hockey Night in Canada is a long-time Canadian tradition of hockey on Saturday nights. The Eastern games start at 7 p.m. Eastern followed by a late-night West Coast game. Don Cherry is part of the festivities in Coaches' Corner, featured after the first period in the early game.

Sports teams caught up in latest grudge match with U.S. & Canada over 'terrorism'

Professional athletes get to travel in a style that not even frequent business travelers get to do. But their travel schedules are more hectic.

Unfortunately, for Canadian-based teams and teams traveling to Canada, traveling for the job just become rather difficult.

Let's have The Associated Press explain the situation:

Years of exemptions for sports teams ended in August when the United States Department of Transportation stepped up enforcement of a rule that prohibits foreign charter carriers from making domestic flights between American cities. Canada responded by enforcing the rule on its side of the border.

If you have trouble following the logic of any of this, you are not alone.

So because of restrictions due to terrorism (among baseball players??), the United States made it illegal for a foreign charter to fly between U.S. cities. Then, Canada struck back on its side of the border.

Where this really gets messed up, the Toronto Blue Jays -- using an American charter company -- was going to Detroit. The logical choice was to fly into Windsor and then bus across the river to the stadium. But due to the rules change, the Blue Jays had to fly all the way to Detroit Metro, far away from the stadium.

The proposal primarily affects the NHL and teams traveling to the Toronto Raptors of the NBA (and of course, the Raptors themselves). It might force teams to fly back home in between road trips, adding aggravation to a busy travel schedule.

But this is the latest in the ongoing "pissing match" between the two countries over travel restrictions to make each country seem "tough on terrorism." Yes, the United States started it, but both countries share a level of blame.

Trucks carrying products and produce have suffered as have vacationers because of this grudge match. The U.S. and Canada have had a mostly friendly relationship for years. The sooner they get back to being mostly friends, the happier the citizens will be in their travels, even professional athletes.

Living 'la vie de sports' in Montréal

There are so many reasons to go to Montréal. The food. The night life. The parks. Olympic Stadium and the surrounding Olympic village from the 1976 Games.

But on this trip, there were a couple of sports angles. I timed the trip to catch a CFL game at Percival Molson Stadium. It's a little surreal to be at a professional sporting event where there's a full house and there are only about 20,000. But the Alouettes play in a tiny venue after playing all their games for years at huge cavernous Olympic Stadium.

Percival Molson Stadium is on top of a hill on McGill's campus, perhaps the best-known Montréal-based university, so if you sit at the top of the north side, you get a wonderful view of downtown Montréal. My seat was on the north side, but closer to field level. Fortunately, I took pictures before the game started.

I've now seen four CFL games live: 2 in Vancouver and one in Toronto. Both are huge stadiums that weren't filled all the way up. This place was much more excited.

It sure helped that Montréal was playing host to its biggest rival, the Toronto Argonauts. And that the Alouettes were coming off their own loss of the season the previous week. Montréal posted a rare shutout, 25-0, its first shutout since 1976. The Argos hadn't been shut out since 1993.

I was really impressed with how basic the setup was. There was one person at the gate, who let me in a few minutes before the actual time. No frisking -- I was treated like a human being. It felt more like a small college football game than the CFL. The only other similar professional sports experience was the bleachers at the old County Stadium in Milwaukee in the late 1990s.

I had been to see the Expos at Olympic Stadium in 2002, knowing I might not have a second chance. I had now seen the Alouettes. All I needed was Les Habs, the Canadiens (NHL).

Saskatoon switch designed to throw off needed Phoenix Coyotes move

The irony -- a sports team trying to save itself in a city by scheduling a few select "home" games in a foreign country, thousands of kilometers away.

The Montréal Expos of 2003 and 2004? Try the Phoenix Coyotes of 2009-2010 -- maybe.

Ice Edge Holdings is a company that has proposed buying the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes and scheduling 5-10 home games in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Or possibly Halifax, Nova Scotia, but likely Saskatoon.

The Coyotes has lost money every year since the team moved from Winnipeg in 1996. Yet the NHL stubbornly wants them to stay in Phoenix.

Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie has offered $212.5 million, substantially more than any other offer, but wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. The NHL has told Balsillie "no."

MLB's excuse with the Expos was that they couldn't stay in Montréal. The league rewarded the incompetent owner Jeffrey Loria, and took the Expos off his hands. So MLB controlled the fate of Les Expos.

MLB scheduled the Expos to play some "home" games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Unlike the Coyotes that would draw more in Saskatoon, the Expos didn't draw much in San Juan beyond their average attendance in Montréal.

The league forced such a ridiculous travel schedule on the Expos in its last year, something that wouldn't happen to the Coyotes. Then there was the 2003 road trip from hell: Montreal to Miami to Philadelphia to San Juan to Seattle to Oakland to Pittsburgh -- 25 days (and 22 games) later. Imagine a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico all the way to Seattle, Washington.

The plan for the Coyotes is to draw upon logical teams (Canucks, Flames, Canadiens) to meet up in Saskatoon, so the Coyotes wouldn't have it nearly as bad as the Expos.

But the teasing of Saskatoon or Halifax is unfair in light of the idea that the NHL doesn't want a 7th team in Canada, and would rather lose money than fill a market hungry for its sport. And as much as Phoenix doesn't want hockey (even though Montréal did want baseball), jerking their team around is still unfair.

We have seen sports leagues screw around with Canadian franchises in the last 15 years. Screwing up an American team with a tease in Canada seems almost as cruel.

MLB teams trying for a Canadian "Halladay"

Of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, only one of them is north of the border -- the Toronto Blue Jays. There used to be two of them: the Montréal Expos were in existence from 1969 to 2004.

Now, baseball pays very little attention to the sport north of the border. Canadians follow the escapades of major leaguers from their country: Jason Bay, Ryan Dempster, Justin Morneau, and more. Canada even has its own Baseball Hall of Fame.

But Americans pay little attention to the Canadians and their influence on the sport. Lately, though, teams and fans are starting to pay attention to the Toronto Blue Jays because they want top pitcher Roy Halladay.

Like a lot of teams, the Blue Jays are struggling on and off the field. The weak Canadian dollar doesn't help the team when the salaries are paid out in U.S. dollars and the fans pay in Canadian currency.

Halladay -- considered one of the best pitchers in the league with a career mark of 142–69, a 6-time All-Star and winner of the 2003 AL Cy Young Award -- would be an excellent addition to any staff.

Given the money and Toronto's need for prospects, only a few teams are realistically in the bidding. The New York teams, Philadelphia, and Boston have been featured most prominently in the rumors.

Late July is a prime time to try and acquire a top player because of the trading deadline. In fact, Toronto GM J.P. Ricciardi has set an unofficial deadline of July 28, three days before the actual July 31 deadline, to get a trade worked out.

Baseball in Canada used to matter more in the early 1990s when the Blue Jays won back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993 and the Montréal Expos had baseball's best record in 1994 before the strike came. Now, interest has been reduced to grabbing one of the game's best player while giving Toronto as little in exchange as they can.

And once Roy Halladay isn't a Blue Jay, there will be even less interest in baseball in Canada by the typical U.S. fan, as if that is possible.

Should Halladay be traded by the Blue Jays? If Toronto receives a really great offer, they should seriously consider it. But Halladay is a vital member of the organization, on and off the field. And there isn't any reason why a great player such as Halladay can't make his baseball home north of the border.

Canada shut out of NHL Winter Classic -- again

The headline itself isn't a shocker: we have known unofficially for some time that Fenway Park in Boston was going to be the destination for the next Winter Classic in the NHL.

The slight surprise was that instead of a classic Boston-Montréal Original 6 matchup -- similar to the Detroit-Chicago battle at Wrigley Field on New Years Day 2009 -- the Philadelphia Flyers will be the opponent.

There has been pressure to add a second game in Canada, but so far that isn't happening. The CBC, which has carried the American versions, in particular would love to have a game in Canada.

The irony is that the first outdoor NHL game was in Canada. In 2003, 57,167 attended a game at Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium (home of the CFL Eskimos) between the Edmonton Oilers and the Montréal Canadiens.

But in the eyes of the NHL, it wasn't the now applicable Winter Classic name. The league recognizes the official 3 Winter Classics, including the upcoming matchup in Boston.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told the press that "we’re exploring ways to re-involve Canadian teams."

We're not holding our breath, not even in weather suitable for New Years Day. Otherwise, the Canadiens would be playing on New Years in 2010 in Boston. Or the league would have included Vancouver, site of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

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Celebrating Canada Day in the United States

I could bore you (really, I could) about the history of Canada Day, the Confederation, and how four lonely provinces became a country on this day in 1867. But even I would get bored. So instead let me share a few personal observations from this year.

-- My Canada Day celebration started on June 30, when the Barenaked Ladies played a free concert as part of our 10-day "eat everything and listen to music" festival. The group seemed off following the recent departure of original band member Steven Page. They didn't do "Brian Wilson" in concert.

But that being said, they were entertaining during and in-between songs, their traditional trademark antics on stage made us laugh.

-- That concert got us in the mood for the next day: Canada Day. I wore my CBC T-shirt with the old ball-type logo (please, CBC, make a hat with this logo and I will buy it and wear it). As part of the free foreign film series on Wednesdays, I saw "Bon Cop, Bad Cop," an English and French Canadian picture that was part satire of buddy movies, commentator of English and French Canadian stereotypes, and a slam against NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and his disdain for Canada.

Imagine a cop, murder mystery that is very funny, and you get an idea for this movie.

We were given Canadian flags to fly, which was a very nice touch. It was fun to be in a room full of people who appreciated the Canadian film contribution. And there were plenty of non-Canadians sprinkled throughout the crowd.

-- In a sort-of related point, a quick shout out to Joey Votto, first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds. Votto is from the Toronto area and is already one of the top players from Canada in the Major Leagues. Votto has been suffering from anxiety from the recent loss of his father (and an ear infection), and actually went on the disabled list for awhile.

Votto has been back for a short while, amusingly making his return in his hometown of Toronto in a rare interleague game between the Reds and the Toronto Blue Jays. Votto's team won on Canada Day, 1-0, over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Who drove in the game's only run? Joey Votto.

-- And finally, Stephen Colbert had a nice touch to honor Canada Day by "slamming" Canada Day:

"Today is Canada Day and I celebrate it the way I always do: by not knowing it's Canada Day."