Hi everyone! Your resident CFL writer is back to start in on your re-introduction to one of the weirdest sports leagues in the whole world. June 22nd kicks off the 2017 regular season, and here’s a quick overview of what to expect from a bunch of Canadian flap-jaws.

WELCOME (BACK) TO THE CFL!

Last year, I wrote a post giving some of the main details of the CFL. You can go back and read it here, if you’d like. Among the important points to take away, if you’re a newbie just starting to follow along this year:

• The league was founded in 1958, though teams have competed for the Grey Cup, Canadian football’s top prize, since 1909.
• There are nine teams organized into two divisions, each playing an 18-game regular season. The division winners each get a bye into the second round of the playoffs.
• Among the most important rule differences between the NFL and CFL: only 3 downs, field is 110 yards long by 65 yards wide, each team plays 12 players a side instead of 11, defense starts 1 yard back from the line of scrimmage, kicks/punt returners get 5 yards of buffer zone to make a catch, missed field goals that leave the end zone are called rouges and are worth one point – they are hilarious when they occur. (You can check out the full list of rule differences in last year’s welcoming article, or here on Wikipedia if you’re curious.)

This year’s Grey Cup will be hosted in Ottawa as part of the Canada 150 celebrations that are going on all year long – it’s the first game hosted in Ottawa since 2004, when the Toronto Argonauts beat the BC Lions 27-19 under a strong game from quarterback Damon Allen. I’ll be in attendance this year, and I’m extremely excited – with no football in Ottawa from 1996-2002 and 2006-2014, it’s only the second time in my life it’s been hosted at home for me, and my first-ever opportunity to attend a Grey Cup. It’ll be cold as shit – it was snowing last year when I was in attendance at the East Division final – and it was close to 0 degrees Fahrenheit when I was in attendance at the 2015 East Final. TD Place is being fitted with about 9500 temporary extra seats for the game, and they’ll be placed in either end zone, bringing seating for the game to about 33,500, which they’re going to leave up for an outdoor NHL game between the Senators and Montreal Canadiens in mid-December, which is also pretty damn cool. After last year’s Grey Cup debacle, which was hosted at BMO Field in Toronto and didn’t even sell out, despite tickets apparently being given away as part of a Pizza Pizza promo – the numbers are way, way better in football-crazy Ottawa, and the game is already sold out. Vancouver and Toronto are non-ideal markets for Grey Cup games, having been played for years in either cavernous domes (BC Place and SkyDome/Rogers Centre) or windswept hellscapes that chilled fans to the bone when watching (Empire Stadium and Exhibition Stadium).

2016 SEASON RECAP

A number of storylines from last year will still have a lot of impact moving forward into this season; the Calgary Stampeders went on an absolute tear last year, going 15-2-1 in the regular season before eventually choking in the Grey Cup to the Ottawa REDBLACKS, who won the East Division with a record of 8-9-1… it was a weird, weird year for division parity. In the West, the BC Lions saw a resurgence from a disappointing 2015 campaign, finishing 12-6 and second in the West under Wally Buono, who returned to coaching duty while also maintaining his GM position. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, long mocked for terrible quarterback play, finally had a bonafide starter emerge in Matt Nichols, and saw their best season in years, finishing 11-7 and third in the West. The Edmonton Eskimos closed out the playoff teams in the West, finishing 10-8 and crossing over to the East Division, beating out the 7-11 Montreal Alouettes for the final East playoff spot, where they went on to defeat the 7-11 Hamilton Tiger-Cats before losing to Ottawa in the East Final. The Toronto Argonauts and Saskatchewan Roughriders rounded out the league, each finishing with a respective 5-13 record, but their outlook looking ahead is much different; the Roughriders went through a rebuilding season under new coach and GM Chris Jones last season, and are hoping to build on the momentum from a late-season win streak last year. The Argos, however, are this year’s big question mark; after getting absolutely obliterated in free agency and after losing their head coach to the NFL and firing their longtime GM, they’re starting over with a new front office and no clear plan in place on the field. The team previews in the coming two weeks will address almost all of the major questions moving forward into the 2017 regular season!

The 104th Grey Cup, despite being an attendance debacle, was among the most exciting final games ever played in the history of the CFL, and fortunately for me, a REDBLACKS fan, it ended a forty-year Grey Cup championship drought in the city of Ottawa – which despite being predominantly a hockey town has really supported its newest CFL team extremely, extremely well. The victory over the heavily favoured Calgary Stampeders was a total nailbiter, requiring overtime to settle, after Ottawa initially mounted a big lead and then almost choked it away in the fourth quarter. The REDBLACKS sealed the deal thanks to an Ernest Jackson touchdown catch to make it 39-33 in overtime, which Calgary couldn’t respond to; to check out a more in-depth recap of last year’s championship game, you can check out the recap here if you’d like.

2016 STANDINGS AND STATS

East Division Standings

West Division Standings

Passing Yards

1. Reilly, EDM – 5554
2. Mitchell, CGY – 5385
3. Jennings, BC – 5226

Passing TDs

1. Mitchell, CGY – 32
2. Rielly, EDM – 28
3. Jennings, BC – 27

Rushing Yards

1. Messam, CGY – 1198
2. Whitaker, TOR – 1009
3. Harris, WPG – 974

Receiving Yards

1. Bowman, EDM – 1761
2. Walker, EDM – 1589
3. Arcenaux, BC – 1566

Sacks

1. Hughes, CGY – 16
2. Chick, HAM – 14
3. Lemon, TOR – 14

Interceptions

1. Leggett, WPG – 7
2. Heath, TOR/WPG – 7
3. Davis, HAM – 5

Field Goals

1. Medlock, WPG – 60
2. Paredes, CGY – 56
3. Milo, OTT – 47

THE MAESTRO’S 2016 GAME PICKS

Regular Season game picks : 45-36

Playoff game picks: 4-1

Season total: 49-37 (.570)

I think I can beat last year’s total pretty easy – if the East division stays healthier, and if Toronto plays like absolute dogshit which I’m completely expecting, then I think I could probably get 52-53 games correct. We’ll see!