Week 2 brings us CFL games in the same 4 western cities we saw last week.
Vancouver is the lone western exception as the BC Lions travel to Calgary for Thursday Night Football.
Toronto goes east but only as far as Winnipeg Friday night in a battle of 1-0 teams.
The Montréal Alouettes make their 2021 debut in Edmonton to take on the Elks in the early Saturday game.
Regina gets a late starting time as the Roughriders welcome Hamilton.
Ottawa gets the week off after a huge win but likely will hang out in western Canada.
The opening week splash on the ESPN channels is reduced to the late Saturday game on ESPNews. That ESPN+ investment looks better.
ESPNews
Saturday
Hamilton @ Saskatchewan, 10p
TSN
Thursday
BC @ Calgary, 9:30p
Friday
Toronto @ Winnipeg, 8:30p
Saturday
Montréal @ Edmonton, 7p
Hamilton @ Saskatchewan, 10p
Bye week: Ottawa
Michael Reilly (BC) and Matt Nichols (Ottawa) did not look anything close to normal. They had very different paths in Week 1.
Reilly was supposed to start in Regina. He did not. Canadian quarterback Nathan Rourke started for the BC Lions.
Rourke's feat was a rarity in the CFL. Giulio Caravatta was the last Canadian quarterback to start for the team back in 1996. Brandon Bridge aka Air Canada was the last Canadian quarterback to start a CFL game in 2018 with Saskatchewan.
Nichols had trouble throwing the ball and moving the team down the field. With help from a strong defence, the RedBlacks won in Nichols' debut with the team.
Nichols' troubles were prime conversation by the panel yet ignored by the announcers on site. Contrast that with Rod Smith and Glen Suitor who were not happy about not knowing who was going to throw for the Lions.
2021 CFL Week 1 preview
Eastern teams in Alberta often struggle on western road trips. Bo Levi Mitchell had never lost to the Toronto Argonauts in the regular season. Trevor Harris had always won when Ottawa and Edmonton got together.
The Alberta teams lost both games on Saturday to the eastern teams. Neither eastern team played well but momentum and a bit of the western teams being the hare in the tortoise and the hare led to the upsets.
2021 CFL preview
Gambling is more prevalent in discussion in sports, not just the CFL. Davis Sanchez had a couple of rants on the point spread in the BC-Saskatchewan game on the CFL on TSN panel. If you are betting on a league with a long layover and no preseason, that is your issue.
‘I guess I'm not a big enough name yet to get that call': Cody Fajardo jokes about unpenalized helmet-to-helmet hit: The first week of the CFL season was relatively mistake-free from an officiating perspective, except for one… https://t.co/KJrRx4iwHW via @JDunk12 pic.twitter.com/dgNPV0Uixz
— CFL Headlines (@CFL_Headlines) August 8, 2021
The CFL did say before the pandemic that they would take care of making sure quarterbacks weren't hurt unnecessarily. Cody Fajardo might have wondered about that as he lay defensively and received a head hit against the BC Lions.
The referees reviewed the play and determined there was no penalty. The logic was the Fajardo was a runner in leaving the pocket.
Fajardo was down and received a head hit. Should have been a penalty for late hit, unnecessary roughness, any of a variety of terms.
Speaking of cheap hits against CFL quarterbacks, Zach Collaros had to have a few flashbacks to the 2019 CFL opener. Collaros, then the Saskatchewan quarterback, was in Hamilton. On the third play of the year, Collaros was injured in a Simoni Lawrence cheap hit. This was the start of the rash of quarterback injuries in the 2019 CFL season.
Collaros now plays for Winnipeg, drawing Hamilton for the opening game. Glad to see Collaros finish Game 1 on his feet.
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The announcing patterns may not return as often. They certainly won't for awhile. Glen Suitor worked 3 of the first 4 games, each with different play-by-play people. Sometimes Suitor's rah-rah schtick can be a bit much but his "CFL comeback" mantra was helpful in that first weekend.
Suitor worked with Rod Black on Thursday, Rod Smith on Friday, and Dustin Nielson on Saturday. Smith and Duane Forde were the tandem in Calgary on Saturday.
TSN had a promo for the BC game with "Mike" Reilly instead of Michael Reilly. Suitor couldn't help but get at least one reference to the old Edmonton CFL nickname.
The panel expanded to 5 people with Jim Barker joining the group. They were spread out since Milt Stegall and Matt Dunigan are in the United States. Now that fully vaccinated Americans can travel to Canada, maybe we will see them in the studio this week. Maybe not.
Barker is good at explaining in short bursts. He reminds us visually and the voice of the late American director Garry Marshall (minus the New York accent).
logo credit: CFL
Twitter capture: @CFL_Headlines
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