Well, well, well. Here we are folks, our beloved CFL looks to be on the ropes and Iron Mike Tyson has a haymaker lined up and ready to deploy. I do not wish to regurgitate the succinct article written on this site a few days ago, so I’ll say this and move on: the Federal Government can flat out make a truncated CFL season a reality with a small (42.5 million is the ask) grant or low-interest long term loan. It appears the Government has zero interest in helping the CFL. It truly is heartbreaking and extremely disappointing to say the very least.
As a die-hard, long-suffering Saskatchewan Roughriders fanatic, I was hoping to satiate people of my ilk with a few comments on what I was expecting from the 2020 version of the Western Riders. Here it goes.
After finishing the 2019 season a sterling 13-5 and awarded the honour of hosting the Western final I expected a 2020 season to finish much the same, sans a sadistic crossbar on the last play of the season of course.
All kidding aside, the Riders were posed to finish in one of the top two spots (in my uneducated opinion) in the increasingly foreboding Western division, resulting in another Mosaic Stadium home-field advantage in either the West Semi-Final or Division final. The Grey Cup being held in Regina was to provide any additional motivation that was required by the team in green and white. We may have to wait until 2021 for this long and strange journey to reach a culminating conclusion, sadly.
On a sunnier note, the CEBL’s Summer Series is being played as we speak for the Canadian Elite Basketball League’s championship. I have been enjoying the heck out of it, albeit my team, the defending champion Saskatchewan Rattlers are a very disappointing 1-3 at the time of this article. The Edmonton Stingers are the cream of the Canadian Basketball crop as I predicted coming into the season. The Fraser Valley Bandits and the first-year franchise Ottawa Blackjacks have been a very pleasant surprise and seem to be on solid footing. With all the doom and gloom going on I could not be more proud of this league and the tireless work that it must have taken to put on such an event! Mad props go out to former most outstanding Canadian and Hamilton Tiger-Cat and Toronto Argos slotback Mike Morreale and his crew! In the absence of the Canadian Football League, we at least have the CEBL to keep our Canadian sports quota filled.
Stay safe sports fans, ‘till next time.