Hello all – after almost six months away, the CFL Beat makes its glorious return this week! I’m looking forward to another year of covering the ridiculous sport of Canadian football for all of you; the season kicks off a bit later this year, with Week 1 games starting on Thursday, June 8th. Without further ado, let’s get you all prepped and up to speed on what to expect from north of the 49th parallel this year in the world of football.

WELCOME (BACK) TO THE CFL!

The first-ever CFL Beat, from 2016, provides more specifics than what I will be listing below, but if you’re unfamiliar with the sport or are looking for a quick refresher, here are some of the most important things to know:

• 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 2016’s welcoming article, or here on Wikipedia if you’re curious.)

Next week, I’ll be giving the preview for all of the East Division teams, followed by the West Division teams the week after. Week 1 of the regular season kicks off on Thursday, June 8th, with the BC Lions and Calgary Stampeders squaring off at 9 PM EST at McMahon Stadium.

The 110th Grey Cup is being hosted in Hamilton this year; the Tiger-Cats organization’s last turn as host was in 2021, when they also played in the 108th Grey Cup at Tim Hortons Field. Fittingly, the Tabbies have tried to load up again this year, in the hopes of being the first host city to win a championship since Saskatchewan managed the deed in 2013, against this same Hamilton team. They’ll have an uphill battle despite making into consecutive games in 2019 and 2021 – last year’s Grey Cup winners, the Toronto Argonauts, are just 70 kilometres down the Queen Elizabeth Way as divisional arch-arch-arch-rivals. The Argos won their title against the powerhouse Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who made the title game for the third straight year, and came up just short of a three-peat after taking home the 2019 and 2021 Grey Cups.

As for your favoUrite team? Well, just hang on for the previews coming out over the next two weeks! Hopefully you’ll be all up to speed very soon.

2023 POINTS OF INTEREST

• For the first time in a number of years, there’s no worry about laboUr strife to start the season. With a CBA signed last year (after some initial false starts), the current agreement is slated through the 2029 season. I, for one, hope this provides some continued stability for the league, particularly as it faces some renewed competition from the USFL and XFL south of the border. The salary cap is set at $5.45 million CAD this year, with minimum player salaries set at $71,000 CAD.
• There are new rules concerning “the ratio” this season – in years previous, teams were required to start seven Canadians out of 24 starter’s position, but this year that number rises to eight. However, one “nationalized American” – a CFL player from the States who has spent either three years with their current CFL team, or five total years in the league – will be allowed to count towards the Canadian ratio. Additionally, one other “nationalized American” starter on both offence and defence can be subbed in for up to 49% of the snaps taken by a Canadian player.
• Divisional playoff games will be played on Saturdays, rather than Sundays, for the first time since 2008, largely in part to wanting less competition from primetime NFL action in the fall.
• The CFL signed a new American broadcasting deal with CBS Sports, with the return being reportedly about $1 million USD a year, or just over $100K per team. This will replace the league’s old rights deal with ESPN, which carried games for many years. Compared to many other pro sports leagues out there, this seems like a really disappointing figure.
• The CFL has long made noise about expansion into Atlantic Canada, but those plans are, unfortunately, on hold once more. Halifax city council committed a preliminary $20 million to the potential funding of a new CFL-calibre stadium back in 2019, but in the four years that have past, we’ve been through a global pandemic, rapid inflation, and continued economic and political changes in the Canadian Maritimes. Getting taxpayer funding for pro sports has long been a difficult challenge at all levels of Canadian politics, but especially so in the small and often-impoverished Maritime provinces – which is good for citizens looking for responsible government choices but not so good for diehard sports fans. The CFL hasn’t given up entirely, but the Schooner Sports and Entertainment group that was leading the charge is no longer putting out any further updates. Until an ownership group is able to come in and privately fund a stadium in a suitable location – which probably somewhere in the Halifax Regional Municipality, the most densely-populated area of all three Atlantic provinces – we’re probably not going to see much more on that front. Touchdown Atlantic is a go for this year, however, and after the success the league saw last year at Acadia University in tiny Wolfville, Nova Scotia, an hour’s drive from the provincial capital, the 2023 game returns to Huskies Stadium, on-campus at downtown St. Mary’s University, which has completed their renovations at last.
• The Montreal Alouettes, having gone through some tumultuous ownership issues over the last few seasons, were quickly taken over by the league and then sold again, after the lawyers managing the estate of the deceased Sid Spiegel, who purchased the team from Bob Wetenhall in early 2020, wanted to rid themselves of the responsibility. The new owner is Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, a multibillionaire former separatist politician and scion of the province’s largest media and telecommunications company. Péladeau is a controversial figure, from his political beliefs to his union-busting tactics to his tumultuous personal life (multiple children to multiple women, and a strange suicide of another girlfriend in between it all), but in a league that needs financial stability most of all, he has some of the deepest pockets in the province and the willingness to support the team in Montreal regardless of the financial picture of the team and league as a whole.
• There’s a ton of logical sense for a ten-team league to happen, which is perhaps why the league was willing to bring in Pierre Karl Péladeau to become the new owner of the Alouettes; with so much clout on an economic and personal level, if there was ever a chance for the league to make inroads into Quebec City, the largest city in Canada currently without a CFL team, it would be through him. Sports fans know that the city managed to get a huge amount of taxpayer money to build an NHL arena in the hopes of bringing the Nordiques home from America after their heartbreaking relocation in 1995 – but in a city where hockey is king, there’s still a huge amount of support for football. The Université de Laval Rouge et Or (Red and Gold) are one of the top college football programs in the country, and their stadium, currently with permanent seating of around 12,000, was at one point averaging over 16,000 a game in the late 2010s – a remarkable feat for a sport that is unfortunately often considered an afterthought in many university academic programs in Canada. The CFL has hosted games before in Quebec City – all with good attendance – but with no clear plans in place to either renovate a stadium to CFL size – around 24,000 or so – or to even bring in a team on a permanent basis into a part of Canada that has an extremely low percentage of English speakers – it may be a difficult path.

2022 STANDINGS AND STATS

East Division Standings

West Division Standings

Passing Yards 

1. Bethel-Thompson, TOR – 4731
2. Collaros, WPG – 4183
3. Harris, MTL – 4157

Passing TDs

1. Collaros, WPG – 37
2. Rourke, BC – 25
3. Bethel-Thompson, TOR – 23

Rushing Yards

1. Carey, CGY – 1088
2. Butler, BC – 1060
3. Oliveira, WPG – 1001

Receiving Yards

1. Schoen, WPG – 1441
2. Rhymes, BC – 1401
3. Lewis, MTL – 1303

Sacks

1. Mauldin, OTT – 17
2. Lemon, CGY – 14
3. Ceresna, EDM – 10

Interceptions

1. Peters, TOR – 6
2. Peters, BC – 5
3. Kelly, HAM – 5

Field Goals

1. Paredes, CGY – 54
2. Ward, OTT – 49
3. Cote, MTL – 44

2023 PICK POOL

I will be running a pick pool again this season – it’s open to readers from anywhere in the world! If you’re interested in playing, just register here through the link below:

https://www.pooltracker.com/join.asp?poolid=221760

Congrats again to our 2022 winner, SonOfSpam, who led all contestants with 56 points last year – and, most notably, unseated back-to-back winner Litre_Cola. Somehow like last year’s Grey Cup outcome, this must also be an anti-Winnipeg bias, I’m sure. I’ll be sure to put a link out once more information on the start of the season becomes available!

2022 Pool Results

And with that, tune in next week to check out previews of the East Division teams – Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Hamilton. Maestro out!