They should be thawed out in time for the Grey Cup

In front of a chilly, bi-partisan audience, the Saskatchewan Roughriders punched their ticket to a rematch with the Montreal Alouettes in the Grey Cup, though it was almost not to be. Another critical special teams disaster was nearly in the cards for a second straight year at McMahon when Ryan Grice-Mullen muffed a punt late in the game, but Wes Lysack failed to fall on the ball for Calgary. The Riders hung on for a pretty exciting, albeit low-scoring, 20-16 win.

This is what Canadian football looks like

In the Mitchell Bowl at McMahon Stadium Saturday afternoon, we saw at least one prolific offense sputter out because football was never intended to be played in sub-absolute zero temperatures, which are being recorded throughout Western Canada.

The Sunday forecast for the Western Final in Calgary calls for meat-locker temperatures with a chance of ice age. The play clock should be extended to 25 seconds in the interest of giving teams more time to huddle-up.

This isn't a sport, this is an insane spectacle of human stupidity that we all love to watch. There's something about Henry Burris in a thick coat on the sidelines with icy sweat on his brow, hands in a fanny pack and breathing volcanic steam that screams playoffs in the local Canadian tongue.

Unless you live in Quebec, like those fruity Alouettes. It's not even freezing temperature in Montreal and they're still playing indoors inside Olympic Stadium.

The early game is Toronto and Montreal. That's the blue collar game you watch to cure your hangover. The Argos aren't explicitly talented, but they've made it this far this season thanks to dedicated trenchwork, a running attack and special teams, those underrated aspects of a game that the dedicated fans and local scribes love.

The late game is Saskatchewan and Calgary, and even though it begins at 2 p.m. local time it will end in darkness, under the lights as the league's most popular team faces off against its most prolific offense filled with starpower. This game represents the casual fan's love of the game, there's something about watching a steady stream of 30-yard-plus plays in a snowstorm that keeps people from changing the channel.

A few NHL fanbases will have the chance to watch hockey, but why would you? Your team will probably get blown out anyway. The MLS Cup is also allegedly being played in Toronto tomorrow night, but that's lined up right alongside the Eagles/Giants game, so I can forgive you for forgetting its on.

From the CIS Blog: your Mitchell Bowl recap. From Facebook: some positively frigid-looking pictures from the Uteck Bowl.

3 things we learned this weekend:

Courtesy of CFL digital media guru Jaime Stein comes this picture proving that the Riders didn't really learn anything this football season. After failing math one year ago, they look to fail at grammar, too.

What the Bills failure to sell in Toronto means

We have seen the Rogers Centre emptier--but that isn't really the point. What matters is that, halfway towards the end of the deal Rogers made with the Buffalo Bills, the NFL probably isn't closer to giving Toronto a team.

Announced attendance for the Bills 34-21 win over the Colts at Rogers Centre was 39,583, some 13,000 below capacity and the lowest attendance for an NFL game in Toronto since the series began three years ago. Clearly, seeing Peyton Manning ride the pine for three quarters or watching the Buffalo Bills isn't a recipe to draw fans, particularly at $155 for lower-bowl tickets, but if Torontonians want the NFL, they'll have to do better than that.

"It's not easy to screw the National Football League up," writes Bruce Arthur of the National Post. "Of course, the fact that Buffalo may be the most ruthlessly, relentlessly, comprehensively boring franchise in football might have doomed the series before it began."

One Toronto Star columnist hypothesizes that the game was only physically attended by half of the announced attendance.

That's an issue. The pictures and video from the event show plenty of footroom for somebody to stretch out and relax upon. But is it really a bad thing to sport in Canada?

If Richard Griffin from the Star is right, and only 20,000 people showed up, that's probably fewer than are likely to attend the Tiger Cats/Argonauts game tonight. An NFL team in Toronto means that the Argonauts are pretty well toast, along with many of the CFL's major sponsors who have a base in Southern Ontario: Nissan, Gibson's, Scotiabank, Wendy's. Suppose Hamilton moves to Québec and Toronto contracts to accomodate the Bills, would the sponsors still be around? Can the league get major sponsorship bucks without a team in Toronto? (The NHL says, yes)

The Bills are a terrible football team and the Rogers Centre is a terrible place to watch football. Canadians like me always notice the lack of butts in the seats before anything else when watching a hockey game in a Southern market. Canada isn't right for the NFL, and the NFL isn't right for Canada.

That's not to say that the NFL is welcome to come and stage events here, but the fans have voted with their wallets, and vote for the NFL to show them some respect. Don't bring in a preseason game and expect them to pay upwards of $100 to watch one quarter of bonafide NFL starters.

CFL Week 3 preview (plus Wednesday Argos recap)

What do you get when you have:

-A quarterback who, even though he has played one extra game than all but one other pivot in the league, is ranked 7th out of 8 in total passing yards?

-A team who was riding an eight-game losing streak coming into the season and was the butt of all jokes, particularly since all of their potential quarterbacks lacked league experience?

-A team that, in their comeback win over the heavily-favoured Calgary Stampeders in their home opener, did not score a touchdown until there was just 1:57 left on the clock?

Your 2-1 Toronto Argonauts. Somehow, that's what you get.

They are on a two-game winning streak, and they are doing in the weirdest of ways.

Wednesday night, 142 yards by Cory Boyd kept Toronto in the game while Grant Shaw kicked field goal after field goal in a close game at Rogers Centre. The defense effectively shut down Henry Burris and the deadly passing attack of the Stamps, intercepting him four times and holding him to 207 yards.

Last week, in a game plagued by raining beer cups, the Argonauts were out-gained 493 to 317, but won thanks to a couple of big returns and a heads-up, savvy-coaching play by coach Jim Barker and linebacker EJ Kuale, who punted a ball with no time on the clock in the first half into the endzone for a single.

They have a victory over one division rival (Winnipeg) and split the season series with the Stamps. We are only 1/6th of the way through, but this is the most interesting team so far to watch. If Cleo Lemon can get it together and give this team a decent passing game, watch out.

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All that done and gone, I can ignore the fact that I completely overlooked last night's game when planning this week's CFL preview.Games aren't supposed to be held on Wednesday.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats vs. Winnipeg Blue Bombers

Hamilton against Buck-Pierce's MVP laser rocket arm. The 'Peg go on the road for the first time after scoring an obscene amount of points in their first two games at home (49 and 34). With the afore-mentioned Pierce having more yards on the ground than starting running back Fred Reid, it's fair to assume to who this team belongs to.

But, Winnipeg has lost this season by letting inferior teams in the game. Their defense is questionable, they've allowed at least one return in each of their two games. Is this the game that the Ti-Cats give last year's rusher DeAndra Cobb his touches? Probably not. It's not that Cobb hasn't been effective, it's that Marcel Bellefeuille seems unwilling to get him into the lineup. The dude is a former offensive co-ordinator and is sitting on one of the most balanced offenses in the league. Oh well.

Edge Winnipeg. (And by default should beat the +4 spread)

BC Lions vs. Montreal Alouettes

Montreal doesn't win in BC, but now that the Lions are playing outside, anything can happen. Also, the Lions have an offensive line that has been easier to penetrate than your average Roxy girl (not that we'd know).

Now that the nostalgia has passed and the Lions are settled into their 'new' 'stadium' how soon until this team starts feeling the heat for its abysmal play this year? Montreal is a defense-first team by default (Everything is in that city, like the politicians and the Habs. But not the women [again, not that we'd know]) and the lone bright spot for the Lions on offense is that time where a whole bunch of Eskimos forgot how to tackle.

Edge Montreal. (And will cover the six. If this is a close game, Montreal will probably find a way to lose, and their shittiness on the West Coast isn't just a BC Place curse)

Saskatchewan Roughriders vs. Edmonton Eskimos

And that leaves the 2-0 Riders. Who let this happen? Who let this team win two games? Who let this running team develop a dangerous passing attack? How long until TSN stops calling Darian Durant a 'breakout star' or pretending that he isn't already as scary as a false positive on a pregnancy test for an opposing defense (again, not like we'd know).

Somebody made the point that the Eskimos haven't been the same since Milt Stegall's last second 100-yard TD return on them a couple of years ago, and I'm willing to believe that. Ricky Ray just isn't that good anymore, and their receivers are no longer big-play threats.

Edge Saskatchewan. (I'll also give them 7 points to cover)

Don't let Wednesday games sneak up on you. All of a sudden you turn into the pre-game show for something you didn't think existed and are left wondering if you've warped space-time.

Great catch, bad math and worse tans highlight Grey Cup rematch

Montreal and Saskatchewan got the CFL season started last night with a ridiculous Grey Cup rematch. After Montreal took a 24-10 halftime lead, the game looked out of reach, and it seemed like a good time to get drunk with buddies and watch fireworks.

But out of nowhere, Saskatchewan came back, thanks to Saskatchewan's passing attack coming alive. Darian Durant finished 30-for-44 with 478 yards passing and the Riders tied the game, eventually winning 54-51 in overtime.

After the team's exchanged touchdowns at the end of the fourth, the CFL's new overtime rules came into play. Apparently all your post-touchdown conversions have to be from scrimmage for two points, which is a good rule, because it pretty well provided us with our highlight of the year.

TSN highlights

(First.... ahaha, this is hilarious. At 2:44 of that clip, the Roughriders get a stop on third down, effectively winning the game. Except they had 13 guys on the field. You'd think after all offseason they'd have learned to count.)

At 3:26, SJ Green makes what ended up being the #1 highlight of the night on ESPN (albeit in a losing cause). Happy Canada Day.

So we started off the year with a wild shootout and everybody wearing green goes home happy for a change, but isn't this 13th man thing a little crazy? The mistake cost the team a championship last year, so naturally you'd figure that they wouldn't do it again?

Prove me wrong, Weston Dressler:

"We laughed, we laughed on the sidelines."

I stand corrected. Andy Fantuz was a little more negative about the thing:

"A one in a thousand chance of that happening two games in a row is crazy. This time I won't dwell on it too much because we got the result. Hopefully we can clean up those logistics and not let it happen again."

It can't really be that hard to count to twelve. Naturally, we'll get a little more reaction out of Saskatchewan on this tomorrow, but, geez. Just because you only have ten fingers (well, the lucky Saskatchawaners anyway) doesn't mean it ain't easy to count to twelve. Use your toes if you have to. Or just take a guy off the field at the start of the game.

-In the other game, Calgary and Toronto combined for six fumbles and two interceptions and wasn't really as well played or entertaining. Jermaine Copeland, now an Argonaut, looked lost without Henry Burris. Cleo Lemon, the newest Argonauts quarterback, looked lost in general.

-Meanwhile, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats become the newest team to arbitrarily 'fine' players for disrespecting locker-room logos. It will cost you 25 push-ups if you walk on the Tiger logo in the middle of the floor. Because that's what's keeping you out of first place.

This has become quite commonplace, with fines in the NHL ranging from $10 to $25. I guess the Ti-Cats recognize no CFL player can afford that kind of money.

But seriously, how many pushups are the Alouettes going to have to do this year, when they inevitably walk all over the Tiger-Cats this season?

Morning Briefing - Saturday June 5th

Fin big in Game 4, Jays radio host suspended

-Ville Leino scored a lucky little goal off of the back of Kris Versteeg, and his Flyers survived a late charge to win 5-3 in Game 4, tying the series at two, bringing us back to Chicago. Patrick Kane finally got an assist in this one, but Jonathan Toews is still held off the scoresheet.

Captain Obvious sez: If the Chicago top line doesn't get it together, Philadelphia win this series. Joel Quenneville is making himself look stupid by continually allowing Philly to match up Chris Pronger with Dustin Byfuglien. Put Patrick Sharp back up on that line, make the line faster and skate around the guy.

Or, just keep doing what you're doing. You're the coach.

Also to note, how great has this series been?

-Here's a dissapointing story out of Toronto (surprisingly, that doesn't even involve the Leafs). Wilner, a host for the Toronto Blue Jays radio station, Fan 950, has the weekend off due to comments made about Cito Gaston after Gaston brutally mis-managed the final two games of the Tampa Bay series. Rogers Communications own the Blue Jays, the stadium, the Fan 950 and Rogers Sportsnet, who show every Blue Jays game this year.

Convergence is a wonderful thing. Oftentimes in sports we forget how important basic beat reporters are. People who cover the team and question decisions. This is a case of the Toronto Blue Jays attempting to control their communications, which they're fine to do, but the radio network and the Jays should work at arms length from each other.

Whether it's pro sports, amateur sports, or collegiate sports, no reporter who has been granted access should ever be barred from attending, asking questions, or reporting games. Newspapers and radio stations are not free advertising space for sports organizations, though it often works out that way.

I dislike Rogers Communications, and part of it comes from the way they have a monopoly on pro baseball in Canada. TSN and CBC no longer have the odd weekend games to show.

-Meanwhile, the Jays managed to hold onto a 9th inning lead for a change, winning 6-1 over the Yankees. Jose Bautista had two more home runs, and at one point was a trending topic on Twitter. Brett Cecil went eight strong, allowing just five hits.

I'm scared to write anything negative about the game, since the Jays might cut off my access to the team.

-Gibdan Hamdan, apparently a former NFL quarterback, retired from football at Argos camp today apparently after looking at himself in the mirror and decided he couldn't offer "100% dedication to the team."

Following his lead, the rest of the Argos left, citing the same problem. Like you would want to dress in powder blue on national TV and lose 15 games a year.

The development just means that we are ever so close to Glen Suitor publicly fellating Danny Brannagan when he throws a completion.

-Finally, Toronto's Laura Newcombe tied for 5th at the Scripps Spelling Bee after missing 'confiserie'. I can't really complain about her performance, because it took me three times to type the word with a cheet sheet on my other tab. There's a joke about the Canada's performances at international sporting events (specifically, the Olympics) somewhere in here, but I haven't found it yet.

At 11, the youngest speller in the final, it seems as if we have a child prodigy on our hands.

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This is the Eh Factor, the 100% green-efficient sports blog. Suck it, BP.