The CFL schedule has more 3-game weeks this season. The Roughriders play in the East on Thursday Night Football once again this week with a trip to the nation's capital.
ESPN2 has the lone U.S. TV game with Mike Reilly and the BC Lions traveling to his former grounds in Edmonton on Friday.
The Battle of southern Ontario was supposed to be a night game in Toronto. The Arkells kindly asked for the CFL to move the game to the afternoon since the band is playing just south of BMO Field at night. So the CFL Saturday doubleheader is football and music.
The vacation cottage is a bit cramped with Calgary, Montréal, and Winnipeg taking the week off.
ESPN2
Friday
BC @ Edmonton, 9p
TSN
Thursday
Saskatchewan @ Ottawa, 7:30p
Friday
BC @ Edmonton, 9p
Saturday
Hamilton @ Toronto, 4p
Bye week: Calgary, Montréal, Winnipeg
The CFL season started with a couple of cheap shots by the Hamilton defence. The Tiger-Cats had 50 penalty yards of that opening drive.
The Simoni Lawrence cheap hit on Zach Collaros, coming on the 3rd play, was the most egregious. Delvin Breaux Sr. had his own late hit on a Saskatchewan receiver.
Lawrence drew a Grade 2 call, a new designation that kicks up a 15-yard penalty to 25 yards. The CFL gave Lawrence a 2-game suspension. The CFLPA is contesting the suspension. Collaros went on the 6-game injured list. Our thoughts is that he should have kicked out for the rest of that game, plus an extra game.
Players don't have to be out for 6 weeks on the list. Cody Fajardo and Isaac Harker will fill in for Collaros.
---
If you went out on a Saturday night, you missed the first 30 minutes of the CFL game on ESPNews … for a NBA trade. The CFL coverage got bumped to ESPNU though the game was streaming on ESPN3 (free to most cable subscribers).
Using ESPNU made more sense for the NBA trade coverage, especially when 3 draft picks were involved. Even if you think that coverage should last 30 minutes (it doesn't), ESPNews was quite late to tell the audience where the game was, no one said that the coverage was going back to ESPNews. Our Twitter feed had the answers eventually.
The CFL game never showed up in my cable TV listings, which is why I begged readers to run the DVR/PVR anyway.
Regular readers will know I will want ESPN to add an extra game. We know that won't happen.
The Winnipeg-BC game started on ESPNews instead of ESPN2 due to a women's boxing match. Live sports programming is annoying but a whole different issue.
U.S. viewers have to pay attention to what type of programming (live vs. taped) precedes CFL telecasts on ESPN channels.
---
The Argonauts wore We The North jersey patches in the preseason. Toronto's home preseason game at Varsity Stadium was hours before Game 1 of the NBA Finals. We will be curious if the Argos keep the patch.
The schedule makers helped out Toronto by not playing in Week 1, so fans didn't have to choose between seeing the Raptors over the Argos.
Grey Cup wins don't get a parade, which is disappointing. The talking heads pointed to 1992 and 1993 for the Toronto Blue Jays World Series parades. The Toronto Argonauts have won 5 Grey Cups since 1993: 1996, 1997, 2004, 2012, and 2017. Maybe other cities do something special for Grey Cups. The CFL deserves that kind of love.
---
Ottawa appeared to reward Dominique Davis for his loyalty in making him the starting QB. Davis had a rough start with 4 interceptions (should have been 5) but the RedBlacks played a more consistent game. The only points for Calgary in the second half came on a Pick 6 off a Davis interception.
Calgary had what appeared to be a 5th interception. Coach Dave Dickenson has used his lone challenge earlier on a play that wasn't needed. A challenge on the interception could have changed the dynamic of the game. Chris Cuthbert and Glen Suitor never mentioned this point.
The CFL shouldn't have too many challenges. However, 1 review is not enough, or at least make potential turnovers as powerful as scoring opportunities where they are automatically reviewed by the command centre.
A footnote to this game: Jonathan Rose caught a late interception for Ottawa. Rose pushed a referee in the East Final and was supposed to sit out the Grey Cup. That never happened but Rose didn't get suspended for the 2019 opener.
---
The BC Lions got 4 more rushing yards than you did Saturday night. Those 4 yards came on 4 carries. The Lions scored a TD early in the 3rd quarter and then had the convert blocked with the Blue Bombers running it back for 2 points. Those were the last points scored by BC. The Lions had a great second quarter but not much of anything else.
CanadianCrossing.com CFL coverage
Kate Beirness is hosting Thursday Night Football again this season but Rod Smith took his regular seat on the panel for the season opener.
Rod Black got on the CFL opener from his NBA vantage point in Oakland for TSN. Black flew from Oakland to Edmonton on Friday telling Duane Forde and the TSN audience that he was "running on fumes."
Chris Cuthbert and Glen Suitor were in Hamilton and Calgary while Black and Forde were in Edmonton and Vancouver.
Black noted during the telecast that he would be in Edmonton on Friday.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.