Editor's note: The story has been updated to reflect a second starting Canadian quarterback in the CFL this week.
Happy Canada Day weekend!! For the first time since 2019, we have Canadian football on and around Canada Day.
The week starts out on Canada Day eve in the nation's capital as the BC Lions travel really far to Ottawa. ESPN2 will simulcast the TSN feed.
Edmonton goes to Hamilton on the actual Canada Day.
The Alouettes complete a home-and-home with the Roughriders with Montréal traveling to Regina on Saturday night. ESPN2 will show this game.
The CFL also plays on the U.S. national holiday with a Monday night game where the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are in Toronto. Andrew Harris will compete against his former team.
The Calgary Stampeders get to enjoy Canada Day weekend without playing football.
ESPN2
Thursday
BC @ Ottawa, 7:30p
Saturday
Montréal @ Saskatchewan, 7p
TSN
Thursday
BC @ Ottawa, 7:30p
Friday
Edmonton @ Hamilton, 7:30p
Saturday
Montréal @ Saskatchewan, 7p
Monday
Winnipeg @ Toronto, 7:30p
Bye week: Calgary
The price of groceries is a talking point in Canada and around the world. The Save-on-Foods promotion gives an opportunity to a selected person who could win a year's worth of groceries. A year's worth of groceries defined as $5,200 in Save-On-Foods gift cards.
"Skill testing required." The reason that could is in bold lies in the fine print. In Canada, you could win a prize but there is no guarantee.
From what we've heard, the skill testing is pretty simple, a math question. The idea is that you don't win just from luck; there must be skill.
Chandler Worthy's 88-yard opening kickoff return for Montréal could have given Celine Hicks of Saskatoon a year's worth of groceries. Chances are Hicks was rooting for the Roughriders but will be glad to get thousands of dollars in groceries, provided Hicks answered the skill testing question.
2 kickoffs returned for a touchdown could win someone $1,000,000. That is also subject to skill testing and is paid out in equal installments for 20 years.
Karen Kuldys just missed out on $1 million but gets prizes from CFL and sponsors
Karen Kuldys of Winnipeg was a illegal block in the back away from possibly winning that $1 million jackpot. Worth a look back to that story.
2022 CFL Week 3 preview
The Alouettes win snapped a 5-0 streak the West had over the East to start the 2022 season. The West teams had gone 3-0 at home and 2-0 on the road.
Thanks to Winnipeg and BC wins, the West is now 7-1 over the East. Every game this week is West-East.
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The Winnipeg leap has been missing since 2019. We saw Willie Jefferson take the stairs in Winnipeg to greet the fans after he ran in an interception for a touchdown against Hamilton. Can't say that was the first leap since the pandemic started but a reminder of how cool that was in the before time.
Also sparking memories of Winnipeg in the before time was a lightning-related weather delay that moved up kickoff by 30 minutes. At least the game itself wasn't interrupted.
It was a historic night for @nathan_rourke 🇨🇦
— BC LIONS (@BCLions) June 26, 2022
436 passing yards the most ever in a game by a Canadian quarterback 🦁#RoarLikeNeverBefore pic.twitter.com/S5VPkJyFvf
Canadian QB Nathan Rourke set a record for most passing yards for a Canadian quarterback with 436 yards. The BC Lions have blown out Edmonton and Toronto by 40+ points in each game.
Gerry Dattilio had the previous mark of 427 yards in 1981.
The BC Lions have won 2 games at home. There could be doubts about how well this will go east of Vancouver.
The potential for 4 strong teams out of the West (every team but Edmonton) is there but divisional games can change that dynamic. The East has to realize that only 2 teams will make the playoffs unless this dynamic changes.
Late news: Edmonton is listing Tre Ford as the starter at quarterback. That makes 2 starting Canadian quarterbacks in the same week. Ford will be the first Canadian quarterback to start for Edmonton since Frank Cosentino on October 30, 1968.
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Edmonton is improving. Calgary really shows up in the second half of their games. The Elks get to experiment with Hamilton before the return of the Battle of Alberta in Edmonton.
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As we've learned, the ESPN hierarchy is that if one thing gets bumped, everything gets bumped. The College World Series (ESPN) bumped UFC to ESPN2 so the CFL game in Vancouver got bumped to ESPNews. ESPN claimed the game was on the ESPN app, which eventually became true.
Your humble narrator was watching live (ugh). As much as getting CFL games on ESPN cable channels is important, sometimes watching is easier on ESPN+ since there are no random interruptions.
CanadianCrossing.com CFL coverage
Rod Smith and Duane Forde were with John Lu in Montréal on Thursday and Sara Orlesky in Calgary on Saturday evening. Dustin Neilson and Glen Suitor were with Orlesky in Winnipeg on Friday night and Farhan Lalji in Vancouver late on Saturday.
The rules are very different in the post pandemic era. Forde doesn't often get to cover the Battle of Alberta but those old norms are gone. A 2022 trend is that Orlesky will cover any and every game in the West outside of Vancouver.
logo credit: CFL
photo credit: TSN/CFL
Twitter capture: @BCLions
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