Ticats open with West run
2018 SCHEDULE RELEASED
Since Commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s musings during Grey Cup week, CFL types have been debating the merits, or (especially) lack thereof, of Canadian football being played in May.
He was talking regular season, yes, but here it is: the Saskatchewan Roughriders will visit the Edmonton Eskimos on Sunday, May 27 in a 2018 pre-season game. And on May 31, the Ottawa Redblacks will welcome Montreal for another pre-season tilt.
The Hamilton TigerCats were close, but not a direct hit. They’ll play their first pre-season game, against the Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts, at Tim Hortons Field, on June 1, 2018.
The regular season ends in the first weekend of November, as per usual.
The Tiger-Cats are scheduled to begin their season nine days earlier than they did last year, and will play four Saturday afternoon games.
They’ll also open the season with five straight games against the powerful CFL Western Division, while finishing it with four straight against the Eastern Division.
Playoff berths are likely to be on the line then, although the TigerCats were formally eliminated in mid-October in 2017 with three eastern division games still ahead of them.
The regular season was extended by an extra week this year in order to reduce inequities in scheduling and, for player-safety concerns, to provide a third bye week to each team.
Hamilton’s bye weeks are in Weeks 5, 10 and 17.
According to custom, the TigerCats will play host to the Argos on Labour Day, with a 6:30 p.m. start. Then, five days later, they’ll be in Toronto for a rematch, which has occurred before but is a more constant feature of the two western Labour Day rivalries: EdmontonCalgary; and Winnipeg-Saskatchewan.
The schedule is out before Christmas, a rare occurrence, and the team is extending its season ticket renewal deadline to next Wednesday at 5 p.m.
“We’ve been working toward releasing a schedule before Christmas for a number of years,” says Matt Afinec, the Tiger-Cats’ Executive Vice-President of Business Operations.
“It’s the first year we’ve been able to do it and it’s a testament to the CFL office. The acceleration of it is rooted in what our fans wanted.”
Hamilton, which has suffered weak starts in five of the last eight seasons, opens with two tough games on the road: in Calgary Saturday, June 16, and in Edmonton Friday, June 22.
It’s likely that the Ticats will spend the time between games in Alberta, as they did in 2017. After losing 60-1 in Calgary they were narrowly beaten, 33-28, in Edmonton six days later.
Five of the Tiger-Cats’ nine home games will be played on Saturday,
with four of them starting at 4 p.m. Hamilton had three Saturday games last year, but each of them began in the evening.
“You can’t please everyone with the start times,” Afinec said. “But it was showing in research with our fan base that a significant segment — mainly families with young kids — preferred some afternoon games. So we asked to be considered for one and ended up with four. Mix in the annual Labour Day Classic in prime time, one Friday night game and two Thursday games, and there truly is something for everyone in our 2018 schedule.”
Ticat research also found that fans don’t like Friday night games after Labour Day, and Hamilton doesn’t have one. The Tiger-Cats play six times on Friday night, but the only one at Tim Hortons Field is on June 29, the home opener which kick-starts Canada Day weekend.