I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.~Jay Gould

CFL

by: hhex65

Wed Jan 18, 2012 at 10:00:00 AM MST

I watch more Canadian football than hockey or American college football, I admit it. When I was very young you could find it on TV. So it's in the happy memory vault near the Guess Who and Tim Horton's doughnuts; filed under exotic tastes. Planning ahead by forging these obscure flashes into future nostalgia pays off yet again. Nowadays the NFL network broadcasts the CFL so I am set.

The CFL (an eight team league) had two teams with the same name for a while. They had the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Even though the "spelling" was slightly different it was confusing and attracted general ridicule.

The Ottawa Rough Riders went out of business in 1996 but a new Ottawa team is supposed to be up and running in a couple years. Falling attendance and financial mismanagement were blamed for their demise.

Example: in 1995, Ottawa drafted Derrell Robertson of the defunct Las Vegas Posse with a fourth round pick in a dispersal draft of teams that folded after the CFL attempted to expand into the United States. Unfortunately, Derrell Robertson had died the previous December in a car accident.

I like the CFL: its humanity, the open-field free kick, the front-center goal posts, the positioning of two kickers in the end zone to defend a field goal attempt, three downs, the kicker advancing the ball, and the forward motion of the backfield. It's a different game, really; not a substitute or alternative.

hhex65 :: CFL