‘Something to look forward to’

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This article was published 20/11/2020 (1754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The CFL unveiled a schedule for the 2021 season Friday. 

But was it just wishful thinking? After the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the entire 2020 campaign and amid ongoing uncertainty, it’s difficult to know exactly what next year will look like.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers president and CEO Wade Miller made no apologies for the league’s announcement. He believes the schedule is important to give hope but also makes good business sense.

“This is our schedule as it stands today,” said Miller. “I’m not going to speculate on what we need to do but everybody needs to be able to adapt through this and we’re going to go with it until we’re not able to. I firmly believe, as a country and province, we’re going to be through a lot of this coming out of the spring.

“It doesn’t feel like that maybe in Winnipeg and Manitoba right now but everybody in this country’s going to do their part and we’re going to get through this. It’s something to look forward to and getting back to some sort of normalcy.”

The Blue Bombers are slated to kick off the 2021 regular season with a rematch of the 2019 Grey Cup game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Thursday, June 10 at IG Field. 

Winnipeg’s 2021 schedule includes three Thursday night games and two Friday night games. In addition, the club will close out the season with four Saturday games.

In a significant departure from the tradition of playing East Division teams twice (once at home, once on the road), Winnipeg will play the Toronto Argonauts only once while facing the B.C. Lions, Edmonton and the Calgary Stampeders three times apiece.

Reducing travel is part of the motivation for fewer games between divisions but Miller said turning up the heat between divisional rivals is important, too, helping to drive attendance.

“How can we create division rivals?” said Miller.

“How can we play more games in our own divisions? So that’s what this does, it allows teams in the East and West to have a couple more rival games.”

Winnipeg faces its biggest rival from Saskatchewan only twice during the regular season — the Labour Day Classic on Sept. 5 in Regina and the Banjo Bowl at IG Field on Sept. 11.

In 2022, the rotation will have the Roughriders and Bombers meeting three times. 

Miller said the 2020 slate has a number of good features, including timely byes in Weeks 6, 10 and 18.

“I think it’s a good balance of some Thursday night games, Friday night games and then in the fall, we’re going to play on Saturdays and start to make a fall tradition of Saturdays,” said Miller.

Miller admits having a schedule in place is helpful to fans making pre-Christmas purchases. He said many season-ticket holders have rolled their tickets over from 2020 to 2021, although he would not specify how many.

“It’s been extremely positive and the support we’re getting from our season-ticket members, our fans in general and our corporate partners has just been phenomenal and overwhelming,” he said.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14