This was the first CFL game I’ve attended in person in nearly three decades
The Canadian Football League’s 2022 regular season is over. The Edmonton Elks had a bye week. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers beat the BC Lions 24-9 on Oct. 28. Three final games were played on Oct. 29: the Calgary Stampeders beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 36-10, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats beat the Ottawa Redblacks 23-16 and the Montreal…
Fans returned in droves and the league’s economic engine is now moving in the right direction
The Canadian Football League had much to celebrate on Sunday. For one thing, this year’s Grey Cup was an exciting and memorable contest. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33-25 in overtime to win the 108th Grey Cup at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton. (These teams played in the previous Grey Cup in…
As other leagues rethink racist team names, the Eskimos' statement in support of Black Lives Matter rings hollow
In the space of a few hours on July 3, three North American sports teams announced they were going to reassess their racist names. Baseball’s Cleveland Indians, the Washington Redskins of the National Football League and the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League have for years resisted calls to drop their team nicknames. But…
What’s in a name? Apparently plenty when it comes to sports teams and imaginary slights
Irving Berlin’s song White Christmas is a classic. But if the logic of a special interest group in Winnipeg prevails, the song’s name would have to be changed to something like Grey Christmas. Black Space Winnipeg, a non-profit organization that lobbies for safe spaces for Winnipeg's black community, argues that the popular Whiteout event put…
The CFL team has carried the name for a long time and it’s not racist or demeaning in any way
The Edmonton Eskimos are legendary. From the time of Jackie Parker and Normie Kwong, they’ve been one of the toughest contenders in the Canadian Football League. Now they face demands to change their name. Some Inuit and other Indigenous groups say the name is racist and demeaning, and ‘Eskimos’ must go. According to critics, the…
Diversity separated from unity is generally not a good thing. We need unity of purpose, on the field and in life
Diversity concerns have been front and centre in recent days. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau characterized a woman’s view as “racist” after she heckled him; Maxime Bernier criticized “extreme multiculturalism” before he left the Conservative Party to set up his own. Rhetoric about diversity can be both heated and so routine as to be boilerplate, obscuring…
For as long as the lens has followed sports, broadcasters have denied fans the language, noise and strategy of the game – until now
It’s the next frontier of TV sports broadcasting. Naturally, the Canadian Football League is leading the way. What? The CFL schooling all the big boys on cutting-edge audio technology? Yup. The final frontier of live broadcasting is going inside the audio of the game. Since TSN and the league gave it the go-ahead, we’ve had…CTE isn’t just a pro football Issue; college and high school players are also at risk, and the damage can be life-altering
Most people associate chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease caused by repetitive brain trauma, with professional football – specifically retired Canadian Football League and National Football League players. But CTE is more than a pro football issue. While the Boston University CTE Center has discovered CTE in the brains of 110 of 111…
The only way to significantly reduce brain trauma is greatly reducing the number of full-contact practices and scrimmages
Helmet makers, along with some coaches, athletic directors and youth sports administrators would like you to believe that there are football helmets available that will greatly reduce the risk of brain trauma and concussions. To put it nicely, they’re misleading you. The reality is there’s very little a helmet can do to prevent brain trauma and…
Fire the coach. Yell at the players to motivate them. Or accept that luck plays a significant role in the outcome, no matter how valiant your efforts
Now is the winter of sports discontent. National Football League coaches are being primed for the chop. National Hockey League and National Basketball Association coaches, too, are trying to stay one step ahead of the grim reaper as their teams’ rosy prospects dim. In the NFL, we hear that longtime Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis…