CFL HANGS IN THE IMBALANCE
The best of the West get to feast on the East too often
The Canadian Football League is very aware of branding now, and so maybe it’s time to recast the West and East divisions with names that are less generic, especially since playoff crossovers have killed the geographic significance of the alignment.
They could take a page from the old NHL book, with the Norris-Patrick-Smythe-type names that forever will be better than Metropolitan and Pacific. Name the West for Warren Moon and the East for Russ Jackson — or, in its present state, Lonie Glieberman.
This was, admittedly, a long way to go for a joke. But the point is, the East stinks. It has been this way for some time, but even as the CFL has had some success in commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s first year, the continued power imbalance has worsened. And it poses an uncomfortable question: how does a nine-team league overcome the optics of a lousy four-team division?
Ambrosie and colleagues in the league offices — not to mention those with TSN, its heavily invested broadcast partner — can hope time will iron out the imbalance. Teams do tend to go through peaks and valleys, and the CFL East happens to be full of valleys — or, this season, canyons. The Alouettes, who brought in a GM with zero experience in that role a year ago, saw him fire coach Jacques Chapdelaine last month after a 3-8 start. Kavis Reed made himself the interim head coach and the team is now 3-12, so that could have gone better.
Hamilton has allowed the most points of any CFL team and scored the second fewest, and benched the franchise quarterback and yet has somehow had an even worse season off the field. GM Kent Austin fired himself as head coach after an 0-8 start and brought in June Jones, who tried hiring his friend, former Baylor head coach Art Briles, only to un-hire him amid the entirely predictable and wholly deserving backlash to bringing in a coach who was fired as part of a huge sexual assault scandal.
The Argonauts, meanwhile, have lacked such off-field drama, although at least bad press would have meant someone in Toronto was paying attention. The Argos have turned themselves around somewhat from last year’s 5-13 face plant, with a 7-9 record, but in the second year at BMO Field the team’s attendance problems have moved from glaring crisis to perfunctory footnote. The team hasn’t been great, but with two wins they could clinch the East title over Ottawa, the other playoff team in the division. The Redblacks are 7-9-1, but they were similarly middling last season and ended up winning a thrilling Grey Cup. They could do it again, but at home this time.
It’s the time between now and the title game in Ottawa, where the CFL rebirth is booming, that could be awkward. The Argonauts will host at least one playoff game, and if it’s the East final, that would be four weeks after their final home game this Saturday. Alternatively, BMO Field could host the East semifinal, which brings in the prospect of a crossover team like Saskatchewan, which at least could mean some late sales from fans of the visiting team. It’s weird to think of the Argos needing a boost from a team based 2,700 kilometres away, but these have been weird times for the Argos.
At least they have company in the CFL’s Glieberman Division.
How does a nine-team league overcome the optics of a lousy four-team division?