The revenge games get underway this weekend as we see the first tripleheader of the season.
Thursday night football disappears after Labour Day and 2021 is no different.
Hoping for a good crowd at BMO Field Friday night as Hamilton visits Toronto. Some (a lot?) of that crowd will be Tiger-Cats fans wearing black and gold.
The Banjo Bowl starts the tripleheader on Saturday in Winnipeg. This is Saskatchewan's first road game of the year; the Roughriders did have a bye 2 weeks ago.
The Battle of Alberta Part II is the middle game in Edmonton.
Ottawa in Vancouver is at the end of Saturday evening without a rivalry element. Someday, we might get the Atlantic Schooners in Vancouver at this time of the year.
U.S. viewers will have to rely on ESPN+ for virtually the rest of the season. The next TV game in the States isn't until September 24.
TSN
Friday
Hamilton @ Toronto, 7:30p
Saturday
Saskatchewan @ Winnipeg, 4p
Calgary @ Edmonton, 7p
Ottawa @ BC, 10p
Bye week: Montréal
The Saskatchewan Roughriders had won 14 of the last 15 Labour Day games. The Roughriders had a slim 1-point lead at the half but couldn't score in the second half. The previous Winnipeg win in the streak was in 2016.
Zach Collaros is now 5-0 on Labour Day games with 3 different teams. Collaros went 3-0 for Hamilton over Toronto and 1-0 for Saskatchewan against Winnipeg.
Edmonton got its first Labour Day win since 2011. The Elks offence looked more like we thought the offence would go.
Montréal now has a 3-2 advantage over Ottawa in the Highway 417 rivalry. The Alouettes offence was quite impressive as Vernon Adams Jr. showed flashes of previous brilliance. Dominique Davis replaced Matt Nichols for the RedBlacks and had some success.
The Alouettes won in 2014 and 2018 while the RedBlacks won in 2016 and 2017. The teams didn't play each other on the holiday weekend in 2015 and 2019. CFL officials: schedule these teams to play each other on every Labour Day weekend.
Hamilton showed the Tiger-Cats were missing some home cooking. The Tiger-Cats have won the last 7 Labour Day game over the Toronto Argonauts. The Argos can get revenge tonight against Hamilton while the RedBlacks have to wait until Canadian Thanksgiving to travel to Montréal.
The other 2 revenge games are on Saturday. A sweep for last weekend's winners will make a huge impact in a shortened 14-game season.
We talk parity about the CFL. Well, through the Labour Day weekend games, 5 of the 9 CFL teams are 2-2. Edmonton, BC, Hamilton, Montréal, and Toronto have split their first 4 games. Winnipeg and Saskatchewan are the only teams above .500 while Calgary and Ottawa are the only below .500 teams.
.@CFL game well into 2nd quarter. @espn @ESPNPR asleep at the wheel. App isn't working. @RedSox let in the tying run so the game won't be on TV anytime soon. Would be able to watch if U.S. had @TSN_Sports.
— Chad Rubel (@canadian_xing) September 6, 2021
ESPN had a MLB doubleheader. ESPN2 had U.S. Open tennis coverage. ESPNews was scheduled to have the Battle of Alberta on Labour Day. The early MLB game in Boston ran really slow. There was an umpire injury in that game but the game itself ran very behind. The second MLB game in Denver switched to ESPNews. We could argue that ESPN overbooked the MLB doubleheader and could have moved the beginning of the game in Denver to MLB Network.
So the CFL game was theoretically available on the ESPN app. Except … the app told viewers that the game "hadn't started yet." The game had started but the app was not working.
The game wasn't available in any form until 4:40 remaining in the 2nd quarter. U.S. viewers missed the first 23 points of the game. A Stampeders extra point was the first point of the stream. The game finally ended up on ESPNews 100 minutes into the coverage in the middle of halftime coverage.
If you had a life and didn't realise the game wasn't on TV, that is a single level of frustration. For those who were around a computer AND couldn't watch the game, the levels of anger resembled a baklava. Check out our Twitter feed for samples.
We would argue for the lack of TV coverage, ESPN owes us an apology AND an extra TV game. That would be especially true over the streaming snafu. ESPN has had similar issues with games on TV and has never given a makeup broadcast. Don't hold your breath.
2021 CFL Week 5 preview
CanadianCrossing.com CFL coverage
Robert C. Wetenhall, who owned the Montréal Alouettes during a crucial time from 1997 to 2019, passed away on September 3.
Wetenhall, an American businessman, bought the Alouettes a year after the team came back into the league. The Baltimore Stallions from the U.S. expansion sort of became the Alouettes.
Under Wetenhall's ownership, Montréal had a streak of 8 Grey Cup appearances in 10 years with 3 championship wins.
He sold the team to the CFL in 2019 after being unable to find a buyer. Sid Spiegel and Gary Stern purchased the franchise; Spiegel passed away in late July of this year.
Canadian politics coverage on CanadianCrossing.com
Our American readers who watch the CFL on ESPN+ may notice that the last part of the last ad in a break sometimes shows up in the feed during CFL games. These days, some of those ads are political ads. I've seen the trailing part of ads for the Liberals, Conservatives, and the NDP this season.
Most Americans don't have a clue that there is a federal election. Sports fans generally don't like to mix politics and sports. The parties know there are potential voters and CFL games draw well in Canada.
Occasionally, an athlete becomes a politician. Ken Dryden was a legendary goalie for Les Habs and later represented the Liberals in the York Centre riding (Toronto) from 2004-2011. Jacques Demers served as a senator from 2009-2019; a Conservative senator until 2015 and then an Independent senator until his retirement. Demers was a legendary coach and also a former broadcaster.
Normie Kwong was a stellar running back for Calgary and Edmonton as well as Lieutenant Governor of Alberta from 2005-2010.
Larry Smith was a running back for the Montreal Alouettes, president of that team, CFL commissioner, and current Conservative senator. Smith has served as a senator since 2010, though he took a brief hiatus in 2011 to run for a seat in the House of Commons. Smith finished third in that race and was brought back into the Senate. He served as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate from 2017-2019.
Gene Makowsky kept it all in Saskatchewan, playing 17 seasons in the CFL for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The 2011 CFL season ended on November 4, 2011, a rare year when the Roughriders were not going to the playoffs. 3 days after the end of that season, Makowsky won a seat in the provincial parliament and has represented the Saskatchewan Party in the Regina Gardiner Park (previously Regina Dewdney) riding since his CFL retirement.
A couple of old time Toronto Maple Leafs played their position on and off the ice. Howie Meeker played right wing for the Leafs and spent two years as a Progressive Conservative MP (1951-1953) while an active player for Toronto. Frank Mahovlich ("The Big M") played left wing and won 6 Stanley Cups. Mahovlich served as a Liberal in the Senate from 1998-2013.
Short-term solutions for TSN to replace Chris Cuthbert on CFL telecasts
Good morning from Regina! First game of what's truly a broadcast bucket list weekend for me!
— Dustin Nielson (@nielsonTSN1260) September 5, 2021
Bombers in town to battle the Riders! Sask has won 14 of the last 15 Labour Day Classics. WPG won ‘19 West Final at Mosaic.
I’ll be calling the ACTION with @GlenSuitor & @saraorlesky pic.twitter.com/MZvgpmy03f
Matt Dunigan and Milt Stegall are on Canadian soil. They were working from home aka the United States on the CFL on TSN panel to start the season. We figured Dunigan would need to be in Canada for the tripleheader this weekend.
Rod Smith worked with Dunigan Friday night in Ottawa. As we noted last week, Dustin Nielson took the Chris Cuthbert role and called both western games with Glen Suitor. Nielson was really excited to be calling both games last weekend.
Rod Black and Duane Forde reunited for the first time since 2019 in Hamilton on Labour Day.
Suitor kept up his 2:1 ratio of games vs. Duane Forde: now at 12-6 with 1 for Dunigan.
TSN has some flexibility with the tripleheaders where a play by play person doesn't have to call games on back-to-back days. One of the colour analysts will have to do double duty unless there is another prospect.
logo credit: CFL
Twitter capture: @canadian_xing; @nielsonTSN1260
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