First and Goal

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/08/2010 (5848 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Five storylines that jumped out while observing the Canadian Football League this past week:

1 If it’s a bluff, then Hamilton Tiger-Cats owner Bob Young should be immediately inducted into the Big Cojones Hall of Fame.

In case you missed it, the Ticat owner — he refers to himself as a ‘caretaker’ — is so fed up with the ongoing fight over where to build a new stadium in Hamilton he is now suggesting in a letter to the mayor that after next year ‘there will be no home for Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the city where we shared so much success and positive experiences together.’

When the letter went public Monday speculation immediately began flying that the Ticats would be moved to Quebec City or Ottawa. That, of course, was denied by the football club.

But while the city and team had been arguing over two potential stadium sites, Young has now opted to take his chequebook and go home by pulling his dough from a proposed East Mountain location. His thinking? If the city and football team can’t even agree on a stadium locale, how are they going to hammer out lease agreements and the like?

And we thought the whole stadium issue here was soap opera-ish.

2 Play along with us here and try to connect some dots when examining the progress of the two CFL teams who missed the playoffs last season, the Toronto Argonauts and Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

More specifically, how can the Argos be 4-2 with the sixth-ranked offence and defence while the Bombers are 2-4 with an attack that is third in scoring and a defence ranked fourth?

A couple of key points:

— All four of the Argos wins this season have featured fourth-quarter rallies, including Friday’s 29-28 victory over Edmonton that included a 14-play, 94-yard drive capped by Cory Boyd’s one-yard TD run with 22 seconds left. Toronto’s four wins are by a combined 10 points.

The Bombers, by comparison, are 0-3 in games decided by a touchdown or less.

— Argo rookie kicker Grant Shaw has connected on just 68.4 per cent of his field-goal attempts (13 of 19), but those numbers are better than the Bombers’ Alexis Serna, who is struggling at 57.1 per cent (8 of 14).

3 So Saskatchewan Roughrider QB Darian Durant was so sick from an intestinal infection caused by under-cooked chicken at a Japanese restaurant in Vancouver he was considered iffy against the Alouettes last Friday. And then he promptly goes out and completes 35 of 62 passes for 445 yards with two touchdowns in a valiant effort in a loss.

Maybe under-cooked bird should be his pre-game meal every week…

"He missed practice and his stomach was messed up," Rider defensive back Omarr Morgan told The Regina Leader-Post. "He hadn’t had anything to eat for two days… What can you say about the man? He’s the best QB in the league because of what he possesses. He’s just getting better."

4 Consider this while analyzing the troubles of the B.C. Lions: their starting offence this week will feature seven players 30 years of age or older in Jarious Jackson (33), Derick Armstrong (31), Geroy Simon (34), O’Neill Wilson (32), Angus Reid (33), Paris Jackson (30) and Jamal Robertson (33).

It’s one thing to be 1-5 and struggling, but to be doing it with an older roster — four starters on defence are 30 or older — doesn’t offer a whole lot of hope for the future.

5 And, finally, the sigh of relief emanating Monday from the camp of the Alouettes was so loud it could be heard in Western Canada — QB Anthony Calvillo may have dislocated a finger on his throwing hand, but it was a clean dislocation, there was no ligament tear and he’s expected to play this week against the Argos.

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca