The Battle of Southern Ontario finally gets its revenge game with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and their many fans in Toronto. Beating the Argos on Friday night wouldn't be just for fun; Toronto is the target for Hamilton to find out whether they are still in the CFL playoffs chase.
Saskatchewan at Calgary used to be a battle of the Dickenson brothers as head coaches. Craig Dickenson now works as an assist for his brother Dave. This is the first game between these teams, the late game on Friday night. The revenge game in Regina will be the final regular season game in the CFL season.
The Highway 417 rivalry is the CTV game of the week on Saturday. The RedBlacks have a lot of appearances on CTV. Helps that the team is good this year. This game counts more in the standings than we've seen in a long time. We explore playoff considerations further down in the story.
Speaking of first-time battles, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Edmonton Elks meet for the first time this season, Saturday night at Commonwealth Stadium. This marks the first battle of the Ford brothers in 2024: Tre Ford at quarterback with Edmonton and Tyrell Ford in the secondary with Winnipeg. Unlike Saskatchewan and Calgary, this revenge game is next week in Winnipeg.
This is a good weekend for the U.S. viewers to get CFL+ set up since CBS Sports Network takes the weekend off.
The BC Lions get a lovely weekend at home in Vancouver to enjoy late summer and to think about last week's loss.
CTV
Saturday
Montréal @ Ottawa, 3p
TSN
Friday
Hamilton @ Toronto, 7p
Saskatchewan @ Calgary, 9:30p
Saturday
Winnipeg @ Edmonton, 7p
Bye week: BC
Regular readers know we are not betters or into gambling. If you asked your humble narrator to put money on last week's games, the money would have gone on BC, Ottawa, and a convincing Montréal win. Toronto easily downed BC in Vancouver, Hamilton had a convincing home win against Ottawa, and we had a second tie this season, featuring Montréal and Calgary.
The Lions were without David Mackie for short-term running. Then again, the Lions had -1 overall yards in the 1st quarter.
BC and Ottawa had something unusual in common: both teams tried out 2 quarterbacks and neither got too much done. Nathan Rourke and Vernon Adams Jr. for the Lions; Dru Brown and Jeremiah Masoli for the RedBlacks. Cool to see Masoli on the Tim Hortons Field turf after all those years in Hamilton.
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The Alouettes had a couple of early fumbles, leading to 10 Calgary points. Montréal blocked a punt for a touchdown but that was negated by a roughing the kicker penalty.
We noted that the unbalanced schedule means some teams don't travel to every city. Still, the Argos went 2,505 days since their last road win in Vancouver on November 4, 2017. Toronto hadn't swept the season series with the BC Lions since 2001.
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There is extra pressure for the Grey Cup host to be in that Grey Cup. The BC Lions hosted in 2011 and won the Grey Cup at BC Place. Vancouver last hosted the game in 2014. We have seen BC play lights out football. Ask Hamilton in Hamilton and Ottawa in Victoria. The team that showed up against Toronto has no chance on any level, playoffs or Grey Cup.
The 2007 CFL season was the last time we saw 2 ties in a season. Since July 2007, every CFL tie has involved either Calgary or Ottawa. Consider that those teams have tied each other twice. This was the first CFL tie for the Alouettes since September 20, 1998 at Hamilton.
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We didn't think AJ Ouellette would be gone this long for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The team signed former Redblacks running back Ryquell Armstead.
Armstead was the CFL's fourth-leading rusher prior to his release. Armstead had 623 rushing yards, 284 receiving yards, and 3 touchdowns in 11 games with Ottawa. Amusingly, Ottawa had signed former Roughrider Jamal Morrow as a replacement at running back.
The CFL decided to do something about Saskatchewan defensive tackle Miles Brown after his low hit on Chris Streveler in the Banjo Bowl. The league issued a maximum fine, ½ a game salary.
We are concerned for the quarterbacks of the future Roughriders opponents this season until Brown gets a suspension.
Winnipeg has former Toronto Argos backup QB Bryan Scott and veteran QB Jake Dolegala on the practice roster. The Blue Bombers will be without linebacker Adam Bighill, who had season-ending knee surgery.
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The BC Lions lost out on a chance to take over first place. The Lions (7-7) are ½ game behind Winnipeg (7-6) and don't have the tiebreaker. The bottom 3 teams in the West are Saskatchewan (5-7-1), ½ game ahead of Edmonton (5-8), and 1 game ahead of Calgary (4-8-1). Since the Roughriders and Stampeders could need a tiebreaker, this week's winner (please, no more ties) is in the driver's seat with the final game between the teams on the last day of the season.
A Montréal (10-2-1) win this week against Ottawa (8-4-1) would be huge for the Alouettes. A win would give Montréal a 3-game lead for the East Division and the tiebreaker with the RedBlacks. An Ottawa win would mean the tiebreaker wouldn't get decided until Canadian Thanksgiving (in Montréal) and a 1-game deficit. Ottawa is 6-0-1 at TD Place in 2024 while Montréal hasn't lost on the road this season. The RedBlacks missed on a chance to clinch a playoff spot in Hamilton.
Montréal clinches a home playoff game with a win over the RedBlacks or a Hamilton win over Toronto Argonauts.
Toronto (7-6) gains ½ game on Montréal and extends its lead over a potential crossover from a West team. Hamilton (4-9), even with the win, trails the Argos by 3 games with 5 to play. The Tiger-Cats own that tiebreaker.
An Ottawa win would also get the RedBlacks a winning record, the third time in franchise history (2015, 2018) in the RedBlacks era. You might recall that Ottawa was 8-9-1 in 2016 when the RedBlacks won the Grey Cup.
Admittedly, both Montréal and Ottawa have had gaps in not being in the CFL but the 2 franchises have not been in the playoffs in the same year since 1985.
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Rogers bought out Bell's share of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the organisation that owns the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC, Toronto Marlies (AHL), and the Toronto Argonauts. This would bring Rogers up to 75% ownership.
MLSE chairman Larry Tanenbaum, via his holding company Kilmer Sports, owns the other 25%. Canadian pension fund OMERS owning 20% of that (5% overall) of MLSE.
This will not affect Bell's TV deals and sponsorships, including the CFL TV deal.
"The kick hit the scoreboard.... again!"
— CFL (@CFL) September 14, 2024
Official Ben Major gets a chuckle a month after his entertaining call from BC place, the first time Stefan Flintoft hit the score board! #CFLGameDay
📺: @TSN_Sports 🇨🇦 & @CBSSportsNet 🇺🇸
📲: CFL + pic.twitter.com/pgPq0ZWHTk
Same punter (Stefan Flintoft). Same referee (Ben Major). Same giant scoreboard at BC Place. The previous time was at the last BC Lions game in Vancouver.
Punters want lift in their punts to give the cover team time to get down field.
Good Morning from Calgary!!
— Dustin Nielson (@nielsonTSN1260) September 14, 2024
Stamps looking to find their game but a tough test with Montreal rolling into town!
I’ve got the call with @GlenSuitor & @britdort! pic.twitter.com/ZgAnJ4TdCM
Dustin Nielson features these fun videos of him walking in the CFL city where he is broadcasting. You can find the videos on his Twitter feed. Nielson mentions in this video that he just landed in Calgary from Vancouver with only 6 hours to kickoff. Your humble narrator finds that intriguing about the time frame involved in calling games on back to back days.
The CFL schedule in the autumn means more doubleheaders and quick turnarounds, especially out west where Nielson and Glen Suitor will be most weekends.
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Toronto @ BC: Dustin Nielson/Glen Suitor/Shantelle Chand
Ottawa @ Hamilton: Rod Smith/Duane Forde/Matthew Scianitti
Montréal @ Calgary: Dustin Nielson/Glen Suitor/Brit Dort
Matthew Scianitti filled in for Kate Beirness on Friday night. Jim Barker was in for Davis Sanchez on the panel. Kate Beirness and the CFL on TSN panel were at Hamilton for the Canadian Football Hall of Fame ceremonies in Hamilton. If you don't know, the Hall of Fame, as such, is within the confines of Tim Hortons Field.
CTV had the Hall of Fame game in Hamilton. The slow start on the over-the-air network got even slower. The Ottawa contest in Hamilton drew 275,000 on Saturday afternoon. The RDS numbers for the Alouettes at night was 291,600 (the Tiger-Cats game was on RDS2).
The Argos in Vancouver drew the largest English language audience at 438,800.
logo credit: CFL
Twitter capture: @CFL; @nielsonTSN1260
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