Editor's note: Today would have been opening day for the 2020 CFL season. The BC Lions would have been in Edmonton tonight. A rare early-season all-Eastern battle with Toronto at Ottawa would have started out on Friday night followed by the Montréal Alouettes in Calgary. The 2019 Grey Cup rematch would have had Winnipeg in Hamilton on Saturday night.
This is a dream about a scenario where the CFL would have been high on the North American sports radar.
The COVID-19 circumstances had gone over better in Canada than in the United States. The only major concern was getting the American and other non-Canadian players across the border.
Those players met up in Chicago. The players had their temperature checked before boarding the plane in Chicago. There were pleasantries shared on the planes even with masks. Some of them had allegiances through university conferences. Some of them were old or new teammates on their CFL teams./p>
The players were flown to Saskatoon, near the hub cities of Regina and Winnipeg, where they could be quarantined for 14 days. Saskatoon has a lot of temptations but the players were limited to Saskatoon berries, great in Saskatoon berry pie.
The Western teams would play at Mosaic Stadium in Regina while the Eastern teams set up at IG Field in Winnipeg.
Teams showed up in uniforms and did not shower until they got back to their hotels.
The U.S. situation was so bad that opening up their leagues was more of a pipe dream. The CFL was the first major league in North America to open us. ESPN was drooling at the idea of the CFL starting on time. The Korean baseball games were drawing decent ratings. You can only charge so much commercial time in the middle of the night.
Korean baseball was Beyonce with strep throat in a land with no music. Canadian football was a Destiny's Child full of healthy Beyonces. The games were in English, shown in prime time, and best of all, the folks in Bristol didn't have to be involved.
What did surprise Canadian football enthusiasts in the United States — yes, there were a few — was that ESPN agreed to carry every single game. Most of the telecasts had been on ESPN+. The folks at ESPN were anxious for live sports. Very. Anxious.
ESPN decided to also carry the TSN pregame show. The network moved its NFL people to do a 1-hour show each week to spotlight the U.S. university kids and their connections to the CFL.
Both the CFL and NFL had Thursday Night Football games though the Canadian musicians at halftime were new to the American audience.
Some American football fans picked teams based on colours (colors). Pittsburgh fans pulled hard for Hamilton because of the black and gold. Others went for the style of quarterback, whether that was Bo Levi Mitchell, Mike Reilly, or Vernon Adams Jr. Some picked teams based on Canadian cities where they had been.
The CFL had an interesting "problem." There were NFL players who wanted to play in the CFL. Badly. Canadians in the NFL got top priority. There weren't that many, but still. The league couldn't bring everyone in, but that made for some fun headlines.
Dr. Laurent Duvernay-Tardif — Montréal native and Kansas City offensive guard — was in a quandry. The good doctor wasn't in a residency program so he had to stay on the medical sidelines. Given that Montréal was the hardest hit city in Quebec and Canada, Duvernay-Tardif chose to cheer on medical personnel from the sidelines rather than play for the Alouettes.
ESPN show hosts spent time wondering whether the Hamilton Tiger-Cats could rise up and snap the league's longest championship drought of 21 years. Chris Berman came out of retirement with a few too many Anthony Calvillo references.
Some fans had online battles over whether Rod Black was over the top or Matt Dunigan a little too happy to be in the booth. They knew the difference between Rod Black and Rod Smith. Hockey fans were thrilled to hear Gord Miller call any sport.
The attendance was a concern: 16,000 were allowed in Regina with 14,000 in Winnipeg. This wasn't ideal but Canada had done so well with stopping the spread of the disease. Fans wore masks and were encouraged to make noise not with their mouths. Watermelons on heads was discouraged but not completely stopped.
Fans were drawn by lottery to attend the games. They were strongly encouraged to donate food to the Purlator people to help those Canadians who were having trouble getting food in a pandemic.
SportsCentre and SportsCenter were happy to give enhanced postgame coverage of the CFL. ESPN even got permission to show a bit of Jay and Dan from TSN to do U.S. specific CFL coverage. You might remember Jay and Dan worked at Fox Sports in the United States.
The CFL often gets lost in summertime but there were no other sports. Americans jumped on the bandwagon. The ratings were good; they might have been better had more bars been open in the States. The CFL got an unexpected financial boost from sales of team hats and clothing.
Some fans were concerned about how scoring went. Rod Black, Gord Miller, and Dustin Nielson helped out knowing more Americans were watching the CFL. The telecasts were a little awkward since the announcers were at home. The camera people were mostly people who lived in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The idea was to limit the number of people affected by the games and telecasts. The announcing teams had so much chemistry that they handled the difficulties well. The announcers met with teams via Zoom to get notes on the teams that week.
The CFL ratings and notice really jumped up on Labour Day weekend. The NFL and college football couldn't get going. Americans figured out the difference between Winnipeg and Saskatchewan and picked sides the day before Labour Day. Travel was difficult for Americans so they watched the Battle of Ontario and the Battle of Alberta.
2020 CFL preseason schedule
If CFL plays in 2020, have all the games in the Maritimes
CanadianCrossing.com CFL coverage
I woke up at that part of the dream but you get the idea. Americans might stop carrying about the CFL when their other sports return but temporary interest would have been a fun phenomenon.
If only Canada could have done as well as New Zealand, we would have a somewhat normal CFL season in 2020.
If the CFL starts in September and the NFL starts on time, the CFL will be even further lost in the U.S. sports landscape. The NFL is more likely to be able to play without fans as opposed to the CFL.
photo credit: me
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