Toronto travels to Montréal to start out on Friday Night Football.
The Saturday tripleheader starts out in the east in the late afternoon as the RedBlacks are in Hamilton. The Tiger-Cats don't want to blow another lead at home.
The BC Lions travel to Winnipeg in the middle game, a Hockey Night in Canada starting time. The Jets are also at home playing at the same time.
The Saskatchewan-Calgary saga finally ends as the teams finish the nightcap in Calgary. Then the teams won't meet again in the regular season.
The early starting time means an overlap between game 2 and game 3 of the tripleheader.
This is the second and final tripleheader of the 2021 season.
Edmonton gets to enjoy some autumn activities, minus its original starting quarterback who has moved on to Montréal.
TSN
Friday
Toronto @ Montréal, 7:30p
Saturday
Ottawa @ Hamilton, 4p
BC @ Winnipeg, 7p
Saskatchewan @ Calgary, 9:45p
Bye week: Edmonton
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers clinched the first playoff spot with a win over the Edmonton Elks. 3 of the 9 Winnipeg wins have come against Edmonton.
The teams were actually tied after 3 quarters at 16-16. The Blue Bombers had just enough going to finish out the win with 10 points in the final quarter. Winnipeg still hasn't surrendered a 4th quarter touchdown in 2021.
Brady Oliveira took over for Andrew Harris after a leg injury.
Winnipeg hopes to solves its kicking woes with the acquisition of Sergio Castillo. The BC Lions, which controlled his rights, got a conditional 4th round pick in 2022.
Taylor Cornelius kept things going enough to keep Trevor Harris out of the Elks quarterback equation.
The Edmonton announced attendance was 24,276: the wide shots of Commonwealth Stadium showed a lot fewer people. The bye week comes at a good time for the Elks.
Calgary and Edmonton had rough starts; Edmonton hasn't bounced back. This is a combination of the name change, apprehension about having to be fully vaccinated to attend a game, the team's own COVID-19 epidemic, financial struggles in Alberta, and a lousy team that lost to Ottawa twice.
The 2021 Edmonton Elks will finish with the last 3 games on the road in a 7-day stretch: road games in Regina, Toronto, and Vancouver. Things will get a lot worse in the Alberta capital.
2021 CFL Week 11 preview
Matthew Shiltz has been around the Montréal quarterback corral for some time. Shiltz had 281 passing yards against Ottawa, 227 yards in the first half. The 12-0 lead helped the Montréal momentum. The Alouettes won the first 3 games against Ottawa this season.
Shiltz and a healthy William Stanback will go a long way to establishing the Alouettes potential playoff status. Maybe there won't be a crossover team to the East. Maybe.
Shiltz will get some help with the Alouettes acquisition of veteran quarterback Trevor Harris from Edmonton for defensive end Antonio Simmons.
Harris is in quarantine after finally getting vaccinated for COVID-19, going the 1-shot Johnson & Johnson route.
Getting to BMO Field in Toronto should be a good experience
Unlike its Alberta cousins, Calgary found a way to climb out of its early-season hole. The Stampeders are on a 3-game winning streak, beating the teams they need to defeat: Saskatchewan (twice) and now BC. The Lions now have a 3-game losing streak.
Calgary got some needed electricity as Roc Thomas took the opening kickoff of the second half and went 101 yards for a touchdown. Jonathan Moxey had a 53-yard interception return for a Pick 6.
The BC Lions are 1-4 at home and 3-1 on the road and an amazing -7 point differential. If Calgary makes a clean sweep on the Roughriders this week, the West playoff picture will have changed dramatically.
We often think patterns are set early in a season. Calgary is trying to prove that theory to be incorrect.
2021 CFL Week 10 preview
We still don't know about the crossover possibility. There are 5 teams in the middle of the pack. Saskatchewan and Montréal are 5-4. Calgary is 5-5. Hamilton and BC are 4-5.
The crossover rules require a distinctly better record for the 4th place team over the 3rd place team in the other division. No ties.
Sometimes we see the best players play on teams that, well, aren't good. The Ottawa RedBlacks have struggled; imagine how much worse they would be without DeVonte Dedmon. This graphic ran in last week's game when Dedmon was injured against Montréal.
Dedmon's 1,889 all-purpose yards is more than double the second place person: Hamilton's Frankie Williams (922).
CanadianCrossing.com CFL coverage
The ESPN+ audience didn't get any studio coverage from Friday night's game. The U.S. audience got a visual Saturday afternoon from the studio. No audio. Madness. The late game on Saturday had audio and video from the studio.
These issues have repeated themselves off and on. If the TSN audience isn't running into these issues and the ESPN+ has a much different experience, why is there a discrepancy. If the TSN audience is running into these issues, why does this keep happening.
This discourages the casual fan from tuning into games. This saddens the not so casual fan. We just want the problem to stop.
I have been to all 9 CFL cities and Moncton to see Canadian football. I have yet to see a CFL playoff game in person and haven't been to Tim Hortons Field. Seeing the 2021 Grey Cup, the first in a quarter century in Hamilton, would be amazing.
That is virtually unlikely to happen this season. This might be the year you decide to go. There are only 24,000 tickets.
Short-term solutions for TSN to replace Chris Cuthbert on CFL telecasts
Dustin Nielson and Glen Suitor were in Edmonton on Friday. Rod Smith and Duane Forde were in Ottawa on Saturday afternoon. Forde had a nice tribute to the sudden departure of his long-time partner, Rod Black.
Farhan Lalji got his second game of the year with Glen Suitor in Vancouver on Saturday. Would TSN send Lalji to Winnipeg this weekend?
Tripleheaders put extra pressure on play by play options. Lalji should be an option outside Vancouver. Gord Miller is the backup to an emergency backup.
Claire Hanna showed up on the other side of Canada on the sidelines. In case you missed the news last week, Hanna switched gears to covering sports in Ottawa. She made her debut on the Ottawa Senators home opener on TSN5 and was on the sidelines at TD Place at the RedBlacks game.
As for Rod Black, the Toronto Mike'd podcast had a Rod Black Exit Interview. Black mentioned that this had been in the works for some time. 3 Down Nation has more on that angle, including a request from Black to broadcast one more CFL game from each stadium. We suggest that the CBC, with its Olympics and amateur sports coverage, would be an ideal fit for Rod Black, at least for 2022 in Beijing.
logo credit: CFL
photo credit: TSN; CFL
Comments