by meteorite » Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:18 pm
In the U.S. it's Columbus Day, but in Canada that's when we celebrate Thanksgiving, and in football in a way similar to the American model. With 13 of the 18 regular season games played, it's when playoff eligibility and likely matchups start coming clear, and this weekend was very decisive.
Toronto, sad sack of the league, played in Montreal, entering the game with a 3 - 10 record and leaving with 3 - 11. To the surprise of many, Toronto actually ended the first half leading by a field goal, but that was all the points they scored. Montreal stopped laughing long enough to take them seriously and scored a couple of unanswered touchdowns on the way to a decisive win, which incidentally removed Toronto from any possibility of winning a playoff spot this season.
But the fan interest was elsewhere. With a touchdown pass completion that ended the third quarter, Montreal quarterback Anthony Calvillo racked up the yards that made him the all-time leading passer in professional football history. He also has the record for most touchdowns and most completions. The CFL had a congratulatory tape ready to go, featuring greetings from the four previous highest record holders, Dan Marino (5th), Brett Favre (4th), Warren Moon (3rd) and Damon Allen, the immediate previous record holder. Damon Allen, the younger brother of NFL Hall of Famer Marcus Allen, who played exclusively in the Canadian league, was on hand to take part in the congratulatory ceremony. It may be a symptom of the more wide open Canadian rules and bigger field that the top three all have a Canadian component in their records.
This also means that Montreal is now tied with Winnipeg at the top of the Eastern Division, with Hamilton trailing badly but four games still to be played. These will decide which two teams meet in the Eastern semi-final and which gets the bye into the divisional final, the winner of which goes to the Grey Cup. Since Montreal faces all powerhouse teams over the period,the most plausible outcome is a Winnipeg - Montreal - Hamilton finish in that order, with Winnipeg going on to the Grey Cup. But long experience shows that in the CFL anything can happen and likely will.
In the Western Division, Vancouver's B.C. Lions desperately want to be in the Grey Cup this year. They spent most of the season playing in a substitute field while their home stadium, B.C. Place, was being massively refurbished and upgraded, including a new retractable roof. And B.C. Place is the chosen venue for the Grey Cup game this year. But they started the season 0 and 6, while Edmonton had an astonishing 7 and 0 run.
But then B.C. caught fire. They won their seventh game and every single one since, so as of Friday night they were tied for the division lead with Calgary. It wasn't easy. Calgary has shown a penchant for winning on the road and losing at home this year, and came into the game at B.C. with an 8 -5 record to the Lions' 7 - 6. The game was a dramatic seesaw. with suspense added as the B.C. kicker, Paul McCallum, was on track to break the Canadian league record for consecutive field goals - and did then added another before missing one, which Calgary promptly ran back for a touchdown. But B.C. clawed back and on the last play of the game needed a field goal to win. And so McCallum came out and, at near the maximum of his range, made the kick that sailed through the uprights and won the game.
This inspired Edmonton, which has been in a tailspin threatening to lose as many games as it has won, to soundly thresh the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders, by a score of 17 to 1. And yes, it was a matter of which side would be the more inept, but the Riders - last year's Grey Cup finalists - outfumbled them handily. So as the week ended B.C., Calgary and Edmonton are tied atop the Western Division, while Saskatchewan's only remaining hope is that over the next four games they will win enough to finish with more points than Hamilton in the East and so replace them in the Eastern semi-final.
So all in all a true Thanksgiving style of weekend football, and many more thrills to come as the final placings are decided.