I realized that my football priorities lie north of the border after Sunday’s football broadcasts on TSN.
A come-from-behind overtime victory by the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings meant that I was unable to watch the first few minutes of the Argonaut-Alouette game. And I was very unhappy about the situation.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a football fan but, if I was a drug addict, then the CFL is my heroin and the NFL is my methadone.
I grew up with our game and it is way too late to teach this old dog new football tricks.
I treat football games like Woody Allen’s character treated old movies in Annie Hall: he had to see the movie from its opening credits to its closing credits. So I missed the opening credits of a meaningless CFL game and it bothered me.
The last weekend of the regular season was like a sandwich.
The Friday night and Sunday afternoon games were the white bread slices, while the delicious filling was provided by the Saturday afternoon games.
There was little on the line in Friday night’s game between Calgary and Winnipeg.
The best reason for Bomber fans to attend the game was fan appreciation night at Canad Inns Stadium.
The best reason for Calgary backup quarterback Drew Tate to make the trip was some quality playing time on the field.
Tate was one of those mistakes that Eric Tillman and Ken Miller made in Saskatchewan. It is clear that Tate had the talent to play in this league, but he was never given a fair opportunity to compete for a starter’s job in Saskatchewan.
I truly wish that Eric Tillman was still the GM in Saskatchewan, but the mishandling of Drew Tate cuts down on the tears for me.
The heart of the weekend was the Saturday schedule. B.C. was forced to win on the road against a first-string Hamilton squad and they pulled off a victory.
The team has rallied behind Travis Lulay at quarterback and got a monster game out of receiver Emmanual Arceneaux. The Lions shut down Hamilton in the second half and lived off the accurate toe of kicker Paul McCallum for their late come-from-behind win.
I can remember a fateful afternoon in 1981 when B.C. and Saskatchewan met in a Vancouver monsoon for a final regular-season game to decide the last playoff spot in the West.
Rider quarterback Joe Barnes fumbled away a victory late in the game and B.C. won the game.
The loss was devastating for Rider fans. The team had won only four games and lost 28 in the previous two seasons.
They had not made the playoffs for five consecutive years and it would be another seven before it happened again.
In 1983, the Riders played their final game of the season in Calgary.
A win by Calgary and they would nose out the Eskimos for the final playoff spot in the West. The cellar-dweller Riders annihilated Calgary and handed Edmonton a playoff spot.
I remember that I could not cheer against the Riders, despite the fact that I hated the Eskimos down to a sub-atomic level in my body. The Rider victory over Edmonton on Saturday helped purge that unclean feeling from my system.
Playoff picks on Friday.
Jim Sutherland is a local freelance writer whose columns appear on Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached at mystarcollectorcar.com