Welcome to Wednesday night football? The Ottawa RedBlacks start their midweek excursion, playing 3 straight games nowhere near the weekend.
Something to do with coffee would make a good sponsor for these midweek games.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be the first midweek guest. Playing in the nation's capital 2 days after the federal election is a nice distraction.
Montréal-Toronto used to be an intense CFL rivalry in the days of Anthony Calvillo and Damon Allen. The teams meet Friday night at BMO Field.
Saskatchewan goes to Vancouver in the nightcap on Friday night in a battle of 4-2 teams. ESPN2 pops up again to join the party.
The Alberta teams and Winnipeg gets to enjoy some late September time. The Elks do have to prepare to play in Ottawa on Tuesday.
ESPN2
Friday
Saskatchewan @ BC, 10:30p
TSN
Wednesday
Hamilton @ Ottawa, 7:30p
Friday
Montréal @ Toronto, 7:30p
Saskatchewan @ BC, 10:30p
Bye week: Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg
Hamilton and Montréal couldn't score an offensive touchdown last week. The Tiger-Cats kicked 5 field goals and added a Pick 6 from Simoni Lawrence. The Alouettes kicked 6 field goals and couldn't get a touchdown in any manner.
Calgary could only score 2 touchdowns in Hamilton while BC had 3 touchdowns in Montréal.
The Tiger-Cats crawled out of a rough start to a 3-3 record. The Hamilton schedule is in rather good shape. Hamilton and Toronto are tied at 3-3.
The lowlight in Hamilton was fumbled kick returns by the Stampeders and Tiger-Cats.
The Argos couldn't keep up as Saskatchewan returned to form as long as Winnipeg wasn't the opponent.
Taylor Cornelius struggled with 2 significant turnovers that led to majors in his debut for the Elks, not enough for a win against the top team, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The Blue Bombers debuted a new kicker, Ali Mourtada, who missed 3 field goal attempts.
Only Montréal, Winnipeg, and Saskatchewan have started the same quarterback through the first 7 weeks of the 2021 season.
U.S. viewers might wonder where @sskroughriders game is. The game is actually on U.S. TV on #ESPNews. That was a genuine surprise. @espn @CFL
— Chad Rubel (@canadian_xing) September 18, 2021
We didn't think ESPN would actually make up for the Labour Day fiasco. Then we saw that ESPNews picked up the Toronto-Saskatchewan game on Friday, which took us by surprise.
Turns out ESPN switched out the games, no longer carrying the Hamilton @ Toronto game on November 12 on ESPNews. This means the last U.S. TV game is on October 1, about 8 weeks before the playoffs. ESPN+ will be there to help, most of the time.
Don't want to keep kicking ESPN+ but this error message greeted U.S. based CFL fans at the beginning of both games on Saturday.
The fans in the early game missed the first BC touchdown. The fans in the late game missed the first 3 minutes before the Blue Bombers scored the initial touchdown.
There were some technical difficulties during telecasts from the TSN end.
We wanted to check if the awkward CFL starting times — the 2:45 windows — meant overlapping the end of one game and the start of another game. Couldn't figure that out because the Friday night game was on TV and the technical difficulties at the start of the Saturday game.
Canada Day 2021: A time for reflection and some celebration
CanadianCrossing.com Indigenous coverage
The BC Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders will be wearing orange spatting as part of their uniforms in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The federal statutory holiday on September 30 was recently established. The first 10,000 fans in attendance will receive a commemorative orange t-shirt. We wrote about the orange shirts that honour the residential school survivors.
2021 CFL Week 7 preview
Last week, we rushed the news on Chris Jones being back in Canada as a defensive consultant for the Toronto Argonauts. His first game won't be in Regina. Otherwise, everything else is relevant. Carry on.
2021 CFL Week 6 preview
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Rod Smith and Duane Forde stayed in the east Friday in Hamilton and Saturday in Montréal. Rod Black went out west to hang out with Glen Suitor in Regina on Friday. Dustin Nielson joined Suitor in Edmonton on Saturday night.
Smith reportedly doesn't like to travel too much. Doing more east games would send Black out west at times. We have noted that Black and Suitor were better suited while Chris Cuthbert and Forde made a good combo.
No announcer will have to do back-to-back games this week. Will be curious who will draw those mid-week games in the east.
logo credit: CFL
Twitter capture: @canadian_xing
photo credit: ESPN+
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