Welcome to the longest week. Ottawa finishes up its midweek football adventures as the RedBlacks travel to Toronto on Wednesday.
Winnipeg hosts Edmonton on Friday Night Football. The Blue Bombers beat them in the Alberta capital in Week 7.
Saskatchewan and Calgary play again, this time in Regina. They will play each other yet again in 2 weeks.
The eastern teams get to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving (or Thanksgiving as it is known in Canada). The Highway 417 rivalry is in Quebec in the early game with the RedBlacks and the Alouettes. The southern Ontario rivalry gathers for the holiday at Tim Hortons Field.
Toronto and Ottawa play twice in 5 days. This is the league's first 5-game week since 2017. The BC Lions get a restful holiday week off.
TSN
Wednesday
Ottawa @ Toronto, 7:30p
Friday
Edmonton @ Winnipeg, 8:30p
Saturday
Calgary @ Saskatchewan, 7p
Monday
Ottawa @ Montréal, 1p
Toronto @ Hamilton, 4p
Bye week: BC
We finally had an overtime game. Montréal won with a dramatic comeback, breaking the long Hamilton home winning streak that stretched for all of 2019 and 2021 until Saturday night.
The Alouettes, down 17-3, scored 17 straight points to take the lead late in the 4th quarter. The 55-yard field goal from Hamilton's Taylor Bertolet sent the game to OT.
A bad handoff in OT led to a Tiger-Cats fumble. Montréal kicked a field goal for the overtime win.
Vernon Adams Jr. was in and out of the game for the Alouettes with an ankle injury. Matthew Shiltz kept the Als in the game. Jeremiah Masoli was back for Hamilton along with Braley Addison and Brandon Banks; the offence just dried up in the second half.
Montréal was involved in the only 2 overtime games in 2019. The Alouettes lost 30-27 to Ottawa at home on August 2 and defeated the Stampeders in Calgary 40-34 in the second overtime.
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Cody Fajardo headed for a second straight road comeback for the Saskatchewan Roughriders but the drive fell short.
Calgary had 0 touchdowns in the 1st quarter before last week. The Stampeders had a pair of offensive touchdowns against Saskatchewan. That was a large difference.
Calgary is the opponent for Saskatchewan's next 2 games.
The head coaches (Dave Dickenson, Craig Dickenson) are brothers. They normally meet for dinner before the night of the game. They didn't meet this time, likely due to COVID-19 protocol.
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831 days between home wins for the Ottawa RedBlacks. Caleb Evans, in his first CFL start, tying the team lead for touchdown passes (3) just from a single game. DeVonte Dedmon scoring on a punt return.
Ottawa is 2-0 vs. Edmonton this season while 0-5 against the rest of the league after the 34-24 win. The Ottawa defence threw up some roadblocks on Taylor Cornelius for the Elks.
Former Edmonton wide receiver Kenny Stafford caught one of the TD passes along with Ryan Davis and Timothy Flanders.
The Elks are 2-3 against the rest of the league but 0-2 against Ottawa. The RedBlacks snapped a 5-game losing streak since winning the opener.
The Ottawa home losing streak is done at 11, the third-longest in CFL history.
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The battle with dealing with a punt deep in your own end is letting it go, giving the other team a point, or possibly getting pinned in your own end. Winnipeg ended up with the ball on its own 6-yard line. The announcers were quick to say they should have given up the point.
For some reason, your humble narrator said, "No. This will work out for the Blue Bombers."
Winnipeg had a 9-play, 104-yard drive that took up 4:15 in the latter half of 2nd quarter for the Blue Bombers in Vancouver.
Not a Nostradamus but had a hunch. The Blue Bombers were playing really good football. Sometimes those scenarios work themselves out.
Kenny Lawler had a great game at receiver for Winnipeg. Lawler had 205 receiving yards on 12 catches, 126 yards in the first half. Zach Collaros threw for 417 yards, a unusual mark in 2021 but not so in recent seasons. Lucky Whitehead was injured for BC against his old club. Whitehead broke his hand and will be out 2-4 weeks.
Lawler unfortunately made headlines for the wrong reason on Monday. The Blue Bombers suspended Lawler for this week's game after they learned he was arrested operating a motor vehicle while impaired.
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Tonight's Ottawa-Toronto contest is a wormhole into a parallel universe for Nick Arbuckle and Matt Nichols. The quarterbacks were going to play for the opposing team in 2020. Nichols went from Winnipeg to Toronto to Ottawa while Arbuckle went from Calgary to Ottawa to Toronto. Neither quarterback played for their middle team.
Arbuckle has seen success in Toronto with a familiar relationship with coach Ryan Dinwiddie while Nichols has struggled in Ottawa even with a familiar relationship with coach Paul LaPolice. Toronto has done much better on the field than Ottawa has in 2021.
The irony within the parallel universe is that neither quarterback is starting for their team in tonight's game. The teams will also battle November 6 in the nation's capital.
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Rod Smith and Duane Forde made the midweek trip to Ottawa and visited Hamilton on Saturday. Rod Black joined Glen Suitor out west in Vancouver on Friday and Calgary on Saturday. Dustin Nielson had the weekend off.
Milt Stegall was out Tuesday and was back on Friday. Davis Sanchez checked in remotely on Tuesday but had the weekend off. Jim Barker was there on the desk.
Memo to TSN: please use more drone shots like we saw in Calgary. The run in on a Rene Paredes field goal was amazing to watch.
Memo to Rod Black: Telling us "red zone or green zone" is confusing. Just say "red zone" and we know what you mean. Thank you.
logo credit: CFL
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