The CFL teams finish this shortened 14-game season with mostly divisional matchups and one intriguing exception.
Ottawa goes east in a very short trip to Montréal to finish the season to start out Friday night.
Edmonton goes west to BC Place to visit the Lions in Vancouver. The Elks have the busiest road trip in CFL history with a stop in Regina, Toronto, and Vancouver in 7 days. The CFL and the Canadian Football League Players Association agreed that both teams on Friday can have an additional 5 players to their active rosters.
The lone inter-divisional matchup as the Saskatchewan Roughriders go to the site of the 2021 Grey Cup in Hamilton late Saturday afternoon. The Tiger-Cats will know whether they need to win before the kickoff on Saturday.
Winnipeg doesn't have to go too far to finish the year in Calgary in the evening in southern Alberta.
Toronto has finished all its games and gets to have cookies and milk with extra time off, not playing until December 5.
TSN
Friday
Ottawa @ Montréal, 7:30p
Edmonton @ BC, 10:30p
Saturday
Saskatchewan @ Hamilton, 4p
Winnipeg @ Calgary, 7p
Bye week: Toronto
The 2021 Grey Cup will go through Winnipeg and Toronto. The Argonauts went 3-1 against Hamilton in 2021 and 7-0 overall at home. Both teams will host the division final on December 5 and ironically their hockey counterparts play that night in Winnipeg.
Hamilton didn't reach the end zone until the final 2 minutes at BMO Field. The Tiger-Cats will host the East semifinal with a win or tie or an Alouettes tie or loss. Montréal kept its home playoff hopes alive giving Winnipeg its second loss of the season. The Blue Bombers rested a lot of regulars in the game. The Winnipeg winning streak is snapped at 9.
Trevor Harris had 3 touchdown passes while Sean McGuire had 4 interceptions.
Saskatchewan clinches a home playoff game, so the West semifinal will be in Regina. Calgary has a 2-1 edge in the regular season.
Calgary reaches the playoffs for the 16th straight season. Winnipeg will now have 6 as of 2021 and Saskatchewan will have 5.
The Stampeders mark is more impressive when you consider Calgary has made the playoffs every year since 1989, except for 2002-2004. The NHL teams in Canada wish for that level of success.
The BC Lions have had a lousy playoff stretch lately, missing the playoffs in 2017, 2019, and 2021. The Lions have had only 1 playoff win (2016) since the 2011 Grey Cup win. 2016 was also the last time in the West playoffs for BC, doing the crossover twice in the East in that time (2014, 2018).
From 1991-2011, BC only missed the playoffs in 1992 and 1996. The BC Lions are trying to rebuild their base to come to games under new owner Amar Doman. The league is rooting for Doman to succeed. I have sat in the upper bowl at BC Place, an area that is currently closed. Winning will help.
You might argue that with 6 of 9 teams making the playoffs, making the playoffs is not a big deal. While every team but Hamilton won a Grey Cup in the 2010s, the teams on the early part of the decade (Montréal, BC) have itchy fanbases.
There are 4 CFL teams with a negative point differential, surrendering more points than those scored. They are the 3 teams not going to the playoffs and the Toronto Argonauts.
The Argos had a -9 point differential: 309 points scored vs. 318 points given up. We noted earlier all of the close wins Toronto had this season. This is a surprise for a team that finished 9-5.
Edmonton snapped its 8-game losing streak on Tuesday; the last win was Labour Day. This was the Elks only win against an East team in 2021. The last win against the East for Edmonton was the 2019 East semifinal with a 37-29 win over Montréal.
The Arkells got the Toronto Argonauts in June 2019 to move the CFL game to start earlier on a Saturday since the band was playing "300 feet" away at the Budweiser stage that night. The band playfully suggested the move. The teams and CFL were positive about the change and the announcement of that change came very quickly.
Hamilton was the opponent that day and the hometown of the band. With the first Grey Cup in Hamilton since 1996, the Arkells were the consensus choice to be the halftime band.
Arkells lead singer Max Kerman talked with Kate Beirness at halftime and was in the booth with Rod Smith and Duane Forde Friday night in Toronto.
Robin Daggers was the alter ego of Robin Sparkles. How I Met Your Mother imagined Daggers played at the 1996 Grey Cup with her song P.S. I Love You. Someone please invite Cobie Smulders and Paul Shaffer to the Grey Cup December 12 in Hamilton.
The NFL will never surpass the CFL in one area: on-air swearing picked up by microphones. The words said on the field match words said in living rooms while watching the game. Canada is more comfortable with swearing than in the United States.
The f-word was a bit more obvious in the Saskatchewan-Edmonton game. The league and the official both apologized; that might have been more about the context than the actual word.
Construction can impede a route to get to BMO Field in Toronto, especially when that construction involves the GO train on a night where Hamilton fans were going to the CFL game in Toronto.
Seemed like GO train folks anticipated an influx of Tiger-Cats fans at the home of the Argonauts.
There was a robust 10,851 (season high) crowd in Toronto, quite a few fans from down the Queen Elizabeth Way made the trip.
The cameras show the north stands. We have heard whispers that the crowd sits on that side to look better on TV. I sat in the south stands in my lone visit to BMO Field.
The weather could turn by December 5 when Toronto hosts the East final. If Hamilton is the opponent, would be nice to see 15,000 people come out to BMO Field.
The Edmonton CFL team nickname change has had some backlash among some fans. Going 0-7 at home does not help. The whining is mostly about change and not understanding the significance of the need for that change.
Glen Suitor's slips in mentioning the old nickname have been numerous and aren't really slips. Suitor mentioned the old nickname about the current team Friday night in Vancouver. He might even think of his actions as a deliberate homage to the old nickname.
Duane Forde accidentally mentioned the old nickname Tuesday night before quickly saying the new nickname. Sounded by an accident though pretty late in the season.
Having people complain in online forums and in social media is understandable. Glen Suitor is a major face of the CFL on TSN coverage; Suitor using a slur against the Inuit people when he doesn't have to is an insult.
Suitor should pay out of his pocket for TSN researchers to count up how many times he used the word on the air in 2021. Then he should write a check for $1,000 x each mention and give that money to Indigenous groups. A heartfelt apology, if Suitor believes the apology, would also be nice.
As much fun as Glen Suitor writing a very expensive check would be, the whole point is not to mention the word again. Using the slur in the context of sports was "justified" because that was the team nickname. Changing the nickname is set up to not sports people repeat the slur.
TSN personalities have been good or perfect in not repeating the old nickname, except for Suitor. Just make him stop.
As we noted, Rod Smith and Duane Forde were in Toronto Friday night. Smith and Duane Forde were also in Toronto on Tuesday for the makeup game. Farhan Lalji and Glen Suitor called the game in Vancouver with Calgary in town.
Smith and Matt Dunigan called the game in the rain in Montréal. Dustin Nielson and Glen Suitor were there for the start of the Edmonton road trip in Regina.
logo credit: CFL
photo credit: TSN
Twitter captures: @canadian_xing (x3)
