Sporting Madness

Photo: Toronto Argonauts' running back Cory Boyd (South Carolina) dives into the end zone for the tying touchdown in the last minute of the Toronto - Edmonton clash last Friday. The Argonauts won 29-28. [ Dan Riedlhuber , Reuters ] Welcome to another edition of The Whole 110 Yards! Here's my breakdown of all of Week 6's CFL action and previews of the coming week. Game of the Week: Toronto 29, Edmonton 28 A slow-starting game between two teams that aren't all that highly-regarded turned into a barnburner Friday night. 3-2 Toronto came out strong and scored 11 points in the first quarter on the road against a 1-4 Eskimos team that only picked up its first win the previous week. The Argonauts led 19-7 at the half, and it looked like this might be a blowout. Edmonton turned it on in the second half, though, with Arkee Whitlock (Southern Illinois) plunging one yard for a touchdown on the Eskimos' first drive. Slotback Jason Barnes (Sacramento State) then m...

One play. One mistake. That's all it came down to in one of the craziest endings to a football game I've ever seen . After Saskatchewan got stopped deep in their own end and punted, they still seemed to have a great chance to hang on and win. In fact, disaster almost struck for Montreal on the punt itself when Brian Bratton bobbled and then fumbled it, but Etienne Boulay saved the day, diving on the ball. Still, Montreal only had 40 seconds to work with, no timeouts and a starting position on their own 34. There were a few mishaps, but Anthony Calvillo completed two long passes and Montreal was in position to kick the winning field goal, but it was from long range and kicker Damon Duval had struggled all game. The ball was snapped, the hold was good, but Duval drove it well right of the uprights. Jason Armstead ran it out and took a knee, and it looked like the Riders had won. Not so fast. In a moment reminiscent of the legendary call that ended Don Cherry 's coac...

Today's Grey Cup clash between the Montreal Alouettes and Saskatchewan Roughriders is all set to kick off in about 40 minutes, and I'm planning to live-blog it right here. I have a brief preview column up over at The Rookies , but I figured I'd use the last few minutes before the game to write a more detailed one here. Without further ado, here's some thoughts on what may be crucial parts of the game. Quarterbacks: On paper, this one looks like a bit of a mismatch. Montreal has Anthony Calvillo , who just won his second straight Most Outstanding Player award after a season where he completed an incredible 72 per cent of his passes and threw for 4,639 yards and 26 touchdowns while only being intercepted six times. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan has Darian Durant , who wasn't even guaranteed to be their starter this year. Durant has come on in the last few weeks, though, and led a tremendous comeback against the Calgary Stampeders in the West Final last week. Moreove...

I've been planning to bring back my regular Link Train feature for some time now,and the amount of great coverage of the Grey Cup out there provides an excellent opportunity. I'll throw in a few Vanier Cup links as well, as I'll be live-blogging that game (from my Calgary hotel room) with the rest of the gang from The CIS Blog tomorrow at 12 p.m. Eastern (10 a.m. Mountain, 9 a.m. Pacific. I'll be back to regular coverage of other sports as well after Grey Cup Weekend. Song of the Day: U2 - Mysterious Ways This has always been one of my favourite U2 songs. The rhythm groove of bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. fits perfectly with The Edge 's guitar work and Bono 's vocals. Plus, it was played at CFL commissioner Mark Cohon 's press conference this morning, which gave me a great excuse to use it here. League links: - David Naylor of The Globe and Mail reports that Argonauts' owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski are ...

It wasn’t all that long ago that Jason Clermont was tearing up the CFL statistically. In 2002, he was drafted fourth overall by the B.C. Lions and made an immediate impact, catching 46 passes for 735 yards and six touchdowns and earning the CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie award. In 2004, he had a career year, recording 83 catches for 1,220 yards and seven touchdowns. He also put up 1,000+ yard seasons with B.C. in 2005 and 2007. In 2008, he was held to 50 catches for 640 yards and three touchdowns, still very solid numbers, but he was released by the Lions after the season ended. He signed a deal with Saskatchewan nine days later and played this year with the Roughriders. In terms of pure statistics, the move didn’t pay off. Saskatchewan has probably the best Canadian receiving corps in the league, so Clermont struggled to find time with the likes of Rob Bagg , Andy Fantuz and Chris Getzlaf competing for catches. He only recorded catches in 12 different games this year, and only had...

I’m in Calgary to cover the Grey Cup, and will be providing plenty of material on it all week. First off, though, I thought I’d address the importance of this event.As a writer covering both the CFL and NFL, and one who frequently writes for an American audience, I’ve faced my share of skepticism about the league and the Grey Cup over the years. Detractors of the CFL often try to diminish it by direct comparisons to the NFL, and on that playing field, the CFL can’t compete; it doesn’t have the resources to pay the NFL’s massive salaries or stage anything on the scale of the Super Bowl. Those detractors are missing the point, though. The CFL isn’t trying to be the NFL, and the Grey Cup isn’t trying to be the Super Bowl. Instead, both offer compelling alternatives. Despite having only eight teams, the CFL has a devoted following across the country, and it delivers exciting action that often goes down to the wire week in and week out. The three-down game makes for an interesting product...

Come join us below for the live blog of the CFL Western Final, between the Calgary Stampeders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. CFL Western Final

It's a crucial battle for playoff positioning in the CFL West Division, as the 8-6-1 Saskatchewan Roughriders take on the 8-7 B.C. Lions. Game time is 5:30 p.m. Eastern/2:30 p.m. Pacific. Join me in the live blog below! B.C. Lions - Saskatchewan Roughriders

I'll be live-blogging the McMaster-Guelph game today, which is on The Score 's University Rush program at 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific. I'll also have some thoughts on other CIS football games around the league, including the Queen's - Laurier clash, which I'll be listening to on CFRC . Come join in then for any and all CIS football talk! If the CFL is more your thing, I'll also be live-blogging the B.C. - Saskatchewan clash at 5 p.m. Eastern/2 p.m. Pacific. McMaster - Guelph

It's a great CFL Friday night showdown. In one corner, we have the 7-5 Saskatchewan Roughriders, tied for first place in the West Division; in the other one, the 5-7 B.C. Lions, in the division cellar. The playoff race is so close at the moment that this could be a huge game. I'll be live-blogging it here and at Out of Left Field starting at 10:30 p.m. Eastern/7:30 p.m. Pacific. Come join me then! B.C. Lions - Saskatchewan Roughriders

It was rather exciting to see former Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell sign with the Saskatchewan Roughriders yesterday [ Murray McCormick , Regina Leader-Post ]. Harrell, the NCAA Division I career leader in touchdown passes, is one of the most impressive quarterbacks I've seen. As I wrote a while ago , there's a great chance he would have been able to succeed in the NFL if not for the groupthink that determines the evaluation of NFL quarterbacks. Harrell had a far better season and career statistically than first-overall draft pick Matthew Stafford or fifth-overall pick Mark Sanchez , but went completely undrafted and then failed to catch on with the Cleveland Browns as a free agent. The logic behind passing Harrell over? Well, it isn't especially convincing. NFL evaluation of quarterbacks has long placed college numbers below such things as height and arm strength. The NFL also consistently passes over "system" quarterbacks who run pass-heavy offences i...

I'll be live-blogging the second game in the CFL Friday Night Football lineup tonight, which features the B.C. Lions hosting the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Both teams lost their opening games last week, so they'll be eager to pick up their first win of the season, but that's going to be a difficult task for the Tiger-Cats. For one thing, despite an appalling showing last week against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, B.C. had plenty of chances to win the game, including on the last drive. That's not too bad against a pretty solid Saskatchewan team, especially one playing in their home fortress of Mosaic Stadium. Meanwhile, Hamilton got their clocks cleaned at home by the lacklustre Toronto Argonauts. The final score was 30-17, but the Tiger-Cats looked worse than that to this observer. Moreover, as Globe and Mail football reporter David Naylor relates on his blog , the Tiger-Cats are 2-22 in June and July since 2005, and no team from the Eastern time zone has won in B.C. since...

The CFL's always a good option for CIS football diehards looking for offseason entertainment, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders are one of the teams to watch. As Neate pointed out with his list of CIS players in the CFL the other day, Saskatchewan is well ahead of the rest of the league in terms of CIS content. The Roughriders, who start their season tonight against the B.C. Lions, have a league-high 21 CIS-trained players on their roster. I'll be live-blogging the game here tonight; kickoff is at 9 p.m. Eastern. Saskatchewan's Canadian-trained talent is perhaps most evident in the receiving corps, where the Riders have two players who are already stars (slotback Jason Clermont from the University of Regina and wide receiver Andy Fantuz from Western) and three more with serious star potential (wide receiver Rob Bagg from Queen's, who I profiled here , slotback Chris Getzlaf from the University of Regina and wide receiver Adam Nicolson from the University of Ottawa...

Yesterday saw some more incredible news out of the Toronto Argonauts when new head coach [ Sporting Madness , Sept. 9] Don Matthews announced [ The Canadian Press , via The Globe and Mail ] that he would start backup quarterback Cody Pickett in place of Kerry Joseph Friday night against Calgary. Now, Pickett did play well in relief of during the Argos' 39-9 loss [ James Mirtle , The Globe and Mail ] to Winnipeg Friday night, completing nine of his 13 pass attempts for 100 yards, but that was his first game action for the Argos. It's a risky move by Matthews, but one perhaps justified by Joseph's poor play, and as Duane Forde pointed out on TSN yesterday, benching, reducing or changing the role of established players in favour of unknowns has given Matthews two Grey Cups (changing Pinball Clemons from a running back to a slotback in 1997 and benching running back Mike Pringle in favour of an offence centred around then-unknown quarterback Anthony Calvillo in 2002)....

Hopefully I'll be able to get/keep weekly CFL picks going here. Here's the first (brief) version: more detail to come in future weeks! Tonight: Hamilton (1-2) at Calgary (2-1) (TSN, 9 p.m. ET): Pick: Calgary Rationale: Calgary's solid offence and quality defence should be enough to beat a Jesse Lumsden-less Tiger-Cats team. Tomorrow: Winnipeg (0-3) at B.C. (1-2) (TSN, 10 p.m. ET) Pick: B.C. Rationale: B.C. and Jarious Jackson finally looked like they were supposed to last week on the road, where they demolished Winnipeg: this week should be round two. Saturday: Montreal (2-1) at Saskatchewan (3-0) (TSN, 7 p.m. ET) Pick : Saskatchewan Rationale: No one's looked able to beat Saskatchewan yet, and I don't think the Alouettes will be able to break that streak. Sunday: Edmonton (2-1) at Toronto (1-2) Pick : Edmonton Rationale : The Eskimos have looked much better than expected so far, and Ricky Ray should be able to pick apart an old and slow Argo defence that has u...

Photo: Saskatchewan knocked off B.C. 26-16 Friday night. (Photo from Luongo ) First, a quick disclaimer. There was plenty that happened in the sports I'm interested in over the weekend, but unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to write about it. Thus, I started several posts but didn't get them finished: they should go up later tonight or early tomorrow. Here's the first one. I'm going to try to start doing some analysis of the various games I go to or watch on here. There's usually plenty of other outlets handling the game stories, so I'll focus more on the analytical side, with perhaps a bit of humour here and there. My preferred method for these is from the Clint Eastwood classic " The Good, The Bad and The Ugly ," breaking down the best performances, the worst performances and the just plain awful stuff that happened (a previous example is here ). I'll file these under "The GBU". As always, post thoughts on the series or ide...