I've been waiting for this day for a long time. My first live CFL game. The Edmonton Eskimos take on the Grey Cup defending champion, Montreal Alouettes at Commonwealth Stadium. BTW an alouette is a small bird, a skylark. Yes, this is the same bird that appears in the song that our American mothers sang to us in French even though they were not French speakers (Alouette gentille alouette, alouette je te plumerai). You remember that one. Now a small bird as a mascot does not engender a lot of fear, but maybe it should. Anthony Calvillo, Montreal QB who played college ball at Utah State and who fearlessly wears the bad luck number 13, was amazing at throwing to Ben Cahoon (Brigham Young) who was amazing at catching just about every pass. That boy could catch straw in a tornado. But I'm getting ahead. I really wanted to see what this two-fifty-yard-line thing was all about and how the game goes when you only get three downs to make 10 yards. In all honesty, I still don't know who "owns" those 10 yards between the fifties but it was easy to see the effect of only having three tries at gaining 10 yards - you throw the ball and then you throw some more. The bigger field also seems to lend itself to a passing game. A few other observations on differences between American and Canadian football: 1) The Canadian defense lines up a yard or so behind the line of scrimmage so there appears to be this wide open lane between the two teams rather than the "nose on nose" look when American teams line up. 2) In Canada everyone in the backfield can be in motion at the snap as opposed to only one player in US. This makes for a lot of confusion for someone like me, resulting in me jumping up and yelling "motion" and calling for a penalty several times before I caught on. The people around me likely thought I was epileptic. 3) Canada does not have the fair catch rule. I noticed several snafus by the guy intending to catch the ball on the kick. I'd be nervous too if 12 guys(I'll get to that in a minute)were bearing down on me like a freight train and I didn't have the option of waving em off with a hand signal. 4) Canada has 12 players on the field at a time as opposed to the US 11. I didn't catch on to that immediately and was kind of baffled when someone got a penalty for having 13 men on the field. I was thinking, "Well, it might happen that you could have one extra man on the field, but two? Let's fire someone." 5) In Canada the goal posts are on the goal line rather than the end line like in the US. Lucky for the PAT kicker. 6) During a conversion attempt, the ball is live in the CFL which makes for several different ways for the defense to score on said attempt. I honestly did not understand what was going on most of the time on a conversion unless it was a straight forward kick for the usual one point. Conversions were a melee and I just tried to react like the folks around me. And speaking of the fans, they were basically a bunch of red necks yelling and spilling beer on each other and having a good time - pretty much exactly like back at the house - so I definitely was in my comfort zone there. The guy to my left was really vocal (and really lit up) and taught me a few Canadian football barbs which I pass on to you: "Third and twenty. I'd go for it, eh?" (That's funny cause, as mentioned above, you only get three downs in the CFL, eh?) After a particularly virulent hit out of bounds - "Hey ref, he didn't mean it, eh?" (Followed by knee slap and beer spill). After Ricky Ray (Sacramento State) (Edmonton QB) throws a blind man interception "So now you go colorblind, eh?" (More beer spillage). Well, I wanted Edmonton to win but the final score was Montreal 33 and Edmonton 23. The cool thing (I think) was that the fans, faced as most of them were, did not seem angry or depressed or to be harboring ill will toward the Alouettes. Back at the ranch, if the Texans lose, there will be some surly mean-ass fans and you should stay out of their way and hope that security is out in force. The atmosphere at this game reminded me very much of the atmosphere at college football games in the US (except for the beer) which I far and away prefer to the pro atmosphere (except for the lack of beer). It was just a really fun Sunday afternoon in some fabulous weather in a great roofless stadium. The stadium in which Warren Moon led the Esks to an unprecedented 5 consecutive Grey Cup championships before going to the Houston Oilers where he had many great years. Did you know that Warren is enshrined in both the US Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame? His number is retired at both the Edmonton Stadium (see pic) and the Tennessee Titan (formerly Houston Oilers) Stadium. I can just picture his rifle arm operating on this big field. And now for a few words on salaries. I did a little research on CFL salaries and found a lot of conflicting information. Figures ranged from 54,000K to 100,000K per year, with marquee players (QBs) making upward of 300,000K. I don't think that the CFL makes salaries public info as the NFL does so it's hard to get hard data. I think that the median NFL salary for 2009 hovered around a million. But then it gets crazy. A few months ago, DeMeco Ryans, linebacker for the Houston Texans, reupped his contract for 6 years for 48 million, 21.75 guaranteed. DeMeco is an outstanding linebacker (pro bowler) who has been showing well since his Crimson Tide days and is a credit to the community, but dayam! I know that the per game attendance for the CFL is considerably less than for the NFL (~35,000 in attendance today) so there's less revenue, but still, dayam! The players I saw today played with no less heart, no less intensity, and no less commitment than NFL players and provided me with just as much, if not more, entertainment as I've found at any NFL game. Anytime there's an interview with an NFL player they spew the boiler plate blather about heart, commitment, love of the game, blah blah. Easy to say at 8 million a season. Boys, I dare you to come do it up here at these salaries. Oh yes, my seat today was in the third row at the 30 yard line and cost less than $50. I could never ever afford that seat at Reliant. Beer was cheaper too. And parking was free. I've included a few random pics.
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