Ottawa gets another midweek football adventure as the RedBlacks host Edmonton on Tuesday.
Winnipeg has a late night in Vancouver Friday night as the Jets go as far west as they can. ESPNews makes a surprise appearance, the final scheduled U.S. TV game of the season. Unbelievable.
Montréal visits the 2021 Grey Cup site as the Tiger-Cats welcomes the Alouettes. The East teams need to make up for lost time not playing each other.
Saskatchewan hasn't played Calgary since 2019. Get ready for the soon to be familiar battle as the teams play each other 3 times in the next 4 weeks. The head coaches aka the Dickenson brothers (Dave/Calgary; Craig/Saskatchewan) add extra depth to the rivalry.
Toronto gets to rest as much as the team can. The Argonauts prepare to host Ottawa on Wednesday next week.
ESPNews
Friday
Winnipeg @ BC, 10p
TSN
Tuesday
Edmonton @ Ottawa, 7:30p
Friday
Winnipeg @ BC, 10p
Saturday
Montréal @ Hamilton, 4p
Saskatchewan @ Calgary, 7p
Bye week: Toronto
Saskatchewan and BC had the best finish so far of any CFL game. The Calgary-Winnipeg game was a close second. The drama of the final Roughriders scoring drive was driven by the shrinking time on the clock. Surprisingly, Saskatchewan managed to score another touchdown on the ensuing kickoff.
Jimmy Camacho, who had hit every field goal attempt to that point for the Lions, picked a bad time in the 4th quarter to miss wide right on a 43-yard attempt. Stefan Flintoft also picked a bad time for a 26-yard punt just before that Roughriders drive for a major.
Team wins and losses come as a team. These BC kickers have done well overall. Most Lions fans wondered why the team didn't go for a 2-point conversion on the final BC touchdown.
Saskatchewan took second place all alone in the West and the Roughriders have the tiebreaker with the BC Lions.
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Toronto doesn't really have a quarterback controversy. They have 2 quarterbacks who share the experience. McLeod Bethel-Thompson was back in charge of the Toronto offence.
The Argonauts play well at home, 3-0 to start. The fans aren't showing up, pandemic or otherwise. 7,758 was the announced attendance.
Vernon Adams Jr. looked beat up but stayed in the game for the Alouettes. Matthew Shiltz got ready but never went in for Montréal. That last interception was thrown from someone who was hurting physically.
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The Tiger-Cats went 3-1 in 4 games in 16 weeks. Hamilton even managed to win a game in Calgary without an offensive touchdown. The Tiger-Cats found their offence in the pouring rain in Ottawa last Wednesday. The only RedBlacks points came on a DeVonte Dedmon punt return in the 4th quarter.
Matt Nichols did come in the second half for Ottawa. Wide receiver Nate Behar finished the game at quarterback with 2 carries for 3 yards and a pass completion for 3 yards.
Ottawa hasn't won at home since June 20, 2019, the longest current home winless streak. The RedBlacks have lost their 11 straight home games.
That streak is the 3rd longest in CFL history: Ottawa owns both as the Rough Riders with 12 (1928-1932) and 14 (1987-1988). If the RedBlacks go winless tonight, the 2021 version will be tied for second worst all time.
Contrast that with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats riding an 11-0 home streak. Orlondo Steinauer has been the coach since 2019 and has never lost at home. 2 wins in 2021 and 9 wins in 2019 for the Tiger-Cats..
We've heard as many words (0) from the @CFLonTSN panel as the @REDBLACKS have points (0). Will #Ottawa score before @TSN_Sports figures out how to restore the audio from the studio? @CFL
— Chad Rubel (@canadian_xing) September 23, 2021
Good news for ESPN+: This was not your fault. We've seen more times than we can count moments where the CFL on TSN studio audio isn't there where the background music could be heard. Sometimes the audio eventually comes back. The audio did not return for the whole game.
Rod Black responded to what they said coming out of the teaser at the 3 minute warning in the first half. Rod Black can hear them and the audience can't? TSN doesn't apologize for the audio issues, which doesn't help.
The audio worked just fine on Friday.
Ottawa is doing its own version of Game of Reconciliation with the upcoming holiday on Thursday. The live music is a nice touch.
We should note in the marketing e-mail we received from the RedBlacks of a presumably all-you-can-buy $5 cans sale of a very popular American beer. The deal applies from 6 pm to kickoff at 7:30 pm. Given the abuse of residential schools and the correlation to alcoholism in Indigenous communities, a beer sale of this kind should have been applied to a different game.
We did edit out the beer ad section of the e-mail, but you can read about that offer.
According to the CFL, the league plans to feature a virtual on-field image that depicts an Every Child Matters logo during games and on-field officials will wear orange pins recognizing the Every Child Matters movement.
We will have more coverage on Thursday on the actual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation holiday on September 30.
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Rod Smith, Rod Black, Dustin Nielson, Glen Suitor, Duane Forde, Matt Dunigan, Marshall Ferguson
Rod Black and Duane Forde stayed east with a quick midweek trip to Ottawa and back in Toronto on Friday. Dustin Nielson and Glen Suitor went westward to Vancouver on Friday.
Rod Smith filled in for Kate Beirness in the studio on Friday. Jim Barker got to sit at the adult table, filling in for Milt Stegall on the panel.
Smith mentioned Marshall Ferguson was doing the Friday night game in Toronto. A mistake, perhaps. Maybe just a shout out since Ferguson hasn't done a game in awhile.
logo credit: CFL
Twitter capture: @canadian_xing
photo credit: Ottawa RedBlacks/CFL
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