Joey Alfieri

The Montreal Alouettes went into McMahon Stadium in Calgary on Friday night very confident but left with their tails between their legs. Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not jumping off the bandwagon just yet. In my opinion, this is the first time all season that the Alouettes deserved to lose a game. I know many of you will say that to win in the CFL you need to play 60 minutes, which is completely true but let’s be honest here…The Als lost to Saskatchewan with less than 2 minutes left in the game in REGINA! And the following week lost on a last second field goal in BC.

What went wrong Friday?

Well Henry Burris was simply on his game. Henry usually has those games against the Alouettes. The reason is simple, les oiseaux allow him to run all over the field. Then again the turning point of the game was not a run by Burris but the Hail Mary pass made with the 1^st half winding down. I was speechless when the play occurred, how 3 Alouette defenders could not knock down that pass was incredible even though Johnson is 6’5 and about 250 lbs. Rookie DB, Rayshaun Kizer didn’t look particularly good on the play and had an off night covering former Alouette Jermaine Copeland. I would expect to see former Argo Khalil Carter take his place but Coach Trestman has the final word on that.

What’s next?

The Als will come back home to face the Edmonton Eskimos, who always put up a tough fight. In the past, Alouettes coaches have never been able to figure out how to stop the always dangerous Ricky Ray. If the Als Blitz Ricky gets the ball away quicker and finds open targets, if they don’t Blitz he has too much time and picks apart the secondary. It will be interesting to see how Trestman and his coaching staff try to stop Ray. Kickoff is at 1 pm ET on Sunday.

The Als have also added several players to their practise roster. Wide Receiver David Ball, Running Backs Quentin Griffin and Brandon Whitaker along with Defensive End Rodney Hardaway have all been added to the 12 man practise roster. The CFL allows teams to jump from 7 to 12 practise roster spots when NFL training camps come to an end. This allows teams to pick up more players who were cut lose by their NFL teams.

Randy Workman

The State of the Union - CFL Style

The only mystery in the CFL is who will win the West. Really, what kind of opposition does Montreal have? Can you really name any team that can challenge Montreal in the East? Please; not even the most optimistic Tiger Cat, Argo, or Blue Bomber fans like their chances against Montreal.

Any fool can pick Montreal to win the East, but it will take the real expert to predict the West champion. The major thing here is that there are four very good teams. Here is the thing. The team who get fourth place may very well be the lucky one. With the crossover, I like the fourth place team’s chances of making it to the Grey Cup than the three teams in the West.

The fourth place team will only have to face Montreal. Sorry, but really - who wants to go through the West when you can play Hamilton, Toronto, or Winnipeg? That may be a little harsh, but in reality, it just might be a huge blessing to finish fourth in the West.

No, I am not saying the teams should tank the season to finish fourth. What I am saying in reality is that the West is the far superior division This could be very well be the year where we could have an all west Grey Cup final. Of course, Montreal could easily win that final. But in reality, it could easily be an all Western final.

The State of the CFL is in pretty good hands. Burris, Ray, and Calvillo are all on career years. The offense is in high gear as Burris’ performance against the Al’s was not even close to the best performance. In fact, Burris’ performance of 407 yards was only the third best performance this season. Then there is Milt Stegall, breaking the Alan Pitts record in style in the bomb over the Argos. Stegall is one of many great Receivers. They are terrific in this league. I look forward to watching each game; yes the state of this game is better than it has ever been in years.

The Stamps, Eskimos, Riders, and Lions all have great attendance Montreal gets a sell-out every game; they are talking about expansion. They are talking about a new stadium in Saskatchewan because of all the sell-outs. The attendance is great in CFL, which mean revenues are up. The new television contract with TSN for the next 5 years gives the League more stable financial growth. Yes, the State of the CFL has never been so good. Now the only thing is trying to find people to tell about it.

Randy

Nich Hall

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats went into Edmonton yesterday as a huge underdog. The organization was sending mixed messages all over the places. On Monday the Ti-Cats announced they had fired head coach Charlie Taaffe and promoted offensive coordinator Marcel Bellefeuille on an interim basis. Then it was announced the Ti-Cats had traded their All-Star linebacker Zeke Moreno to the Winnipeg, the same Blue Bombers they are chasing for the last playoff spot, for a first round draft pick and a lineman that will likely stay on the Toronto/Buffalo Bills practice roster. But at the same time Bellefeuille and the rest of the organization professed they could still make the playoffs.

So as the Cats took the field last night it was time to make a statement. On their second offensive play Casey Printers was intercepted by Jason Goss and returned 50-yards for the major. 30 seconds in and Coach Bellefeuille found himself down seven, congratulations on the new post… Fortunately for the Ti-Cats the game turned into something of a circus affair, Ricky Ray and Casey Printers both threw four interceptions. Jason Goss picked off Printers three times, and returned two of them for touchdowns. The Cats’ corner Geoff Tisdale tried his best to match Goss, as he picked Ray off twice, but only scored one touchdown. In a game governed by big plays on offense and defense the Ti-Cats once again found themselves withing striking distance of a huge win. Trailing 31-30 the Cats got the ball with 5:30 left in the game. A twenty yard run by Printers and a 31-yard completion to Scott Mitchell put the Cats in position to kick a go ahead field goal, which Nicholas Setta put through from 23-yards out to make it 33-31 Hamilton.

However the problem with these Ti-Cats is the fact that with two minutes left and a two point lead, you almost knew the Eskimos would at least get a field goal to win the game. That’s just what happens to Hamilton. Low and behold, Rick Ray got the job done. Backed up into a 2nd and 13 Ray found Kelly Campbell 35-yards down field on a post route. In an obvious passing situation the Cats got burned, hold your surprise. On the next play a clearly deflated Cats defense watched as Surrey, BC native Calvin McCarty took the ball 21-yards for the go ahead score only 73 seconds after getting the ball back. As Casey Printers tried to make a play on the run in the last minute he was hit and fumbled the game away. The Eskimo who made the hit? Jason Goss, who finished off his monster game by driving the nail in the Cats’ coffin a little further.