Saskatchewan wants to be the third straight CFL team in a row to win the Grey Cup on its home turf. Hamilton wants to win its first Grey Cup in the 21st century.
The two second-place finishers pulled up their respective upsets to advance to the 10st Grey Cup. The two teams with the most passionate and well-traveled fans will play for North America's oldest trophy.
U.S. and Canada can unite under one live telecast — TSN and NBCSN — to see who will be the Canadian Football League championship for 2013.
NBCSN will simulcast 2013 Grey Cup Countdown To Kickoff on TSN, starting at 6 pm Eastern. NBCSN has a window until 10 pm Eastern, but don't be surprised if the coverage runs long. Run the DVR/PVR on both sides of the border.
TSN's Grey Cup coverage on Sunday gets underway with the 2013 Grey Cup Pre-Game Show at 1 pm Eastern.
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NBC Sports Network
Sunday
Hamilton vs. Saskatchewan @ Regina, 6:30p (TSN simulcast)
TSN
Sunday
Hamilton vs. Saskatchewan @ Regina, 6:30p
RDS will also carry the Grey Cup live.
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Hamilton has really not had much luck with Saskatchewan this season. The teams met in back-to-back weeks when the Roughriders were riding their unbeaten streak, while the Tiger-Cats were at their low point. In Week 4 on July 21, the Tiger-Cats suffered a rare CFL shutout in Regina, 37-0. The following week in Guelph, the Ticats were closer, suffering a 32-20 defeat.
In fact, Hamilton went 2-6 against the West division this season, beating B.C. at home and winning in Edmonton.
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While the reception was less than ideal, I watched both games Sunday on my television by streaming Justin.TV through my Roku box. The audio was wonderful and I even got the TSN commercials and SportsCentre updates. I can (somewhat) understand NBCSN's desire to tape-delay the TV broadcast, but the channel should have been gracious enough to allow a ESPN3 or NBCSN live stream.
Waiting until later in the evening for the East final would have been maddening enough. Waiting until Tuesday morning to watch the end of the West final would have been ridiculous.
And I know ridiculous. There were years where I watched a tape-delayed broadcast days later and avoided any contact with the result until I could see the game.
I know TSN video on demand was another option for U.S. viewers, but that wasn't live. Still, the TSN availability was quicker than NBCSN was.
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NBCSN chose to carry post-game celebrations as part of its CFL playoffs coverage. Couldn't find any Found 3½ minutes of lost footage of the East telecast in the second quarter. The halftime and the first 3½ minutes of the second half disappeared from the West telecast. The time period was filled out at the end with the trophy presentation and the TSN crew analysis.
This marked the NBCSN debut of the Weston Dressler CFL bumper. Both Roughriders bumpers belonged to wide receivers, with Chris Getzlaf getting the other honor. Dressler's theme was being so fast he can play ping pong with himself.
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How well did the edits go for the passionate CFL viewer? Our regular reader Tim weighed in:
Unrelated, can we agree that NBCSN really sucks? I just finished the West Final-what I wish they still called it. Editing 3-4minutes from the East Final and starting the 2nd half of West at 11:29 blows. Did they really need that $1,000 for the infomercial they air? Or maybe could they develop and grow an audience for a sport much more recognizable to us than soccer?
I enjoyed seeing the post-game trophy presentations, but not at the expense of game action. With the relatively small window, the East final wasn't as edited. Clearly, NBCSN put some thought into presenting the West final. And a lot of that thought was misguided.
Would we have complained about missing post-game? A little. But our voices would be justifiably louder in missing action that affects the game.
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This is only the third Grey Cup in Regina. The Grey Cup didn't reach Saskatchewan until 1995 when Baltimore beat Calgary 37-20. The only other Grey Cup was in 2003 when Edmonton edged out Montréal 34-22.
Given this is the 101st Grey Cup, the West has seen very few Grey Cup games. Winnipeg has only hosted 3 games, the first in 1991. Calgary (first in 1975) and Edmonton (first in 1984) have only hosted 4 times.
Vancouver has hosted 15 Grey Cups and will host its 16th next year.
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We announced in the fall that Hedley will be the halftime music performer. Saskatchewan's own Sheepdogs (from Saskatoon) will play during the opening ceremonies.
Hedley performed "Cha-Ching" at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Serena Ryder will perform the national anthem. Let's hope things don't go as poorly as they did for last year's anthem singer, Burton Cummings of the Guess Who.
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If you average out the guesses over what percentage of fans at Rogers Centre on Sunday were Ticat fans, you would get about 50%. You would expect an increase in attendance for a playoff game, but a lot of the increase were wearing black and gold. The attendance for Sunday's game was 35,418, by far Toronto's highest attendance of the season. The regular season high was with Hamilton in Week 1 at 29,852. The second-highest was Hamilton's trip at 28,467. The highest non-Ticats game was a Week 19 visit from Montréal at 22,589.
Hamilton, like Saskatchewan, travels really well. I saw that up close in Moncton this year: nice and definitely enthusiastic. In fact, if Saskatchewan wasn't involved and the home team, you'd see even more Hamilton fans at the Grey Cup.
Rogers Centre got loud on Sunday but not always toward the Double Blue. Tiger-Cats fans also have two pent-up issues: not having been to a Grey Cup in the 21st century and have a tiny 13,000 capacity for its temporary home stadium where getting there was difficult.
Previous coverage:
Rob Ford makes negative impact on Toronto's Grey Cup quest
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Saskatchewan won the Grey Cup the last time the two teams met in the title tilt. The Roughriders edged out the Tiger-Cats 43-40 in the 1989 Grey Cup in the brand new SkyDome.
Hamilton blew out Saskatchewan 24-1 in the 1967 Grey Cup at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa and won on its home turf over Saskatchewan 13-10 in the 1972 Grey Cup.
The Tiger-Cats, in that modern incarnation, have won 8 Grey Cups: 1953, 1957, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1972, 1986, and 1999. For as enthused as Roughriders fans are, the team has only won 3 Grey Cups. The last time was in 2007 over their prairie rivals Winnipeg 23-19 at Rogers Centre. Besides the 1989 game, the only other Saskatchewan title came in 1966, beating the Ottawa Rough Riders (yes, the Roughriders beat the Rough Riders) 29-14 at Empire Stadium in Vancouver.
Hamilton is 8-10 in Grey Cups while Saskatchewan is 3-15. The Roughriders lost the 2009 and 2010 Grey Cups to Anthony Calvillo and the Montréal Alouettes. The 2009 contest was the infamous 13th man play at the end of the game.
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Hockey fans watching would have picked up on the contrast between the way Hamilton embraced the East Division trophy while Saskatchewan refused to touch the West trophy. Hockey superstition is to only touch the trophy that counts: the Stanley Cup.
Roughriders receiver Chris Getzlaf, who has won the Grey Cup for Saskatchewan, has a brother, Ryan, who has won the Stanley Cup. They know what they are doing.
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Playing for a Grey Cup in Regina will feel like home for a few Tiger-Cats. Kent Austin was the coach that led the Saskatchewan Roughriders to the Grey Cup win in 2007 and quarterbacked the team to a Grey Cup win in 1989. Andy Fantuz was a star receiver and inspired Fantuz Flakes while with the Roughriders. And Henry Burris has a couple of stints in Regina during his career.
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photo credit: CFL
The East edit was during the first half after Toronto scored. After the commercial the action began with 1st and 10 Hamilton. Noticing the missing kickoff I checked the clock which was at 9 minutes. I then rewound back to the touchdown. I think there were +11 minutes. My guess is the teams traded possessions without consequence. Now that I erased the game I cannot pinpoint the exact moment it happened.
Posted by: Tim | November 21, 2013 at 01:43 PM
You are correct. I went back and found about 3 1/2 minutes lost in the 2nd quarter, just after Toronto went up 14-10. I saw the game live, so I should have spotted that. Excellent catch. That is exasperating that we are losing game coverage at playoff time.
Posted by: Chad | November 21, 2013 at 04:12 PM
I have to work . Would you know if there is a live feed?
Posted by: Bernie Ouellette | November 23, 2013 at 09:02 PM
Bernie, TSN (Canada) and NBCSN (United States) will have a live feed. If you live outside those countries, perhaps you can stream via TSN International. Bonne chance. Good luck.
Posted by: Chad | November 24, 2013 at 10:01 AM