Dave’s Football Blog

Canadian football is still one of the biggest sports tickets north of the U.S. border, but at least one CFL team president thinks the NFL could crush the CFL with one move.

In an article in the Winnipeg Sun, B.C. Lions President Bob Ackles believes that the future of the CFL is at stake if an NFL team moves to Toronto.

“No question in my mind a team could be successful in Toronto,” Ackles told Sun Media. “But it would take southern Ontario and immediately kill Toronto and Hamilton and therefore it would kill the Grey Cup and the CFL. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”

Translation: those imperialist bastards could trample something that’s uniquely Canadian, and we value our Canadian-ness. (Keep in mind that one of the MVP trophies handed out at the Grey Cup is for Most Valuable Canadian.)

This is clearly an attempt by Ackles to help boost his country’s national identity, though I have to wonder how much identity you can put into a 3-down, 110-yard variation on a game played by your neighbors to the south. The differences between American and Canadian football aren’t quite as severe as the differences between, say, rugby union and rugby league. Wouldn’t it be better for the gridiron game to unify under one code, even if it involved adding some Canadian elements to the American game? (The wider field and more liberal pre-snap motion rules come to mind.)

And where does all this expansion talk come from, anyway? The NFL is evenly aligned right now, and adding only one expansion team would ruin the format. If the NFL were to expand, it would literally have to expand by four teams — two in the AFC, two in the NFC — to remain even, and then it would have to realign each conference into three divisions of six teams, which might ruin a lot of current division rivalries and make a 16-game schedule a bit trickier to pull off.

That alone will keep the NFL out of Toronto for a while. I’m a little surprised anyone is bringing this up now, out of the clear blue nowhere. After all, if the Canadians stuck to playing rugby union, rather than letting ol’ Thrift Burnside change the rules to create a gridiron game, this wouldn’t even be an issue, would it?

(Spotted on FanHouse. Represent!)

I haven’t paid much attention to the Canadian Football League this year, perhaps because other things happening on our football planet — the AFL, the NFL, the Premier League, etc. — have been dominating my time, and also because the Toronto Argonauts are 2-5 but would make the playoffs if the season ended today.

Still, this made me smile just a little.

Montreal running back Jarrett Payton is the CFL’s offensive player of the week after leading the Alouettes to a 30-18 win over the Calgary Stampeders in just his third game in the league.

Payton rushed for 160 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries last week. His performance included a 35-yard run in the second quarter that was capped by an eight-yard score.

It’s impossible to root against Jarrett Payton, whose father was truly one of the all-time greats and was taken from us far too soon because of liver problems. Walter’s son showed flashes of his father while he was at the University of Miami, and many sports fans were hoping that Jarrett would find a spot on an NFL roster one day, but he was cut by the Tennessee Titans in 2006 after being way down on the depth chart for them in 2005.

So far, Jarrett’s biggest football accomplishment was leading the Amsterdam Admirals to a World Bowl title in the now defunct NFL Europe. A small part of me hopes he can lead Montreal to a Grey Cup, and that he scores the touchdown in that game that his dad never got to score in Super Bowl XX.

Good on ya, Jarrett. I know you’re trying to live up to an impossible legacy, but we’re rooting for you just the same.

(Spotted on FanHouse.)

Is this a great time for football or what? The Premier League season starts tomorrow, the NFL preseason is under way, the Rugby World Cup and FIFA Women’s Word Cup are just around the corner, the Australian Football League season is entering its stretch run, and as if that weren’t enough, David Beckham actually played!

With all this stuff going on, it’s impossible for me to get to everything — unless I quit my job and write for AOL full time, but that’s not happening just yet. In the meantime, here’s some fun stuff from around the webtertubes…

• Premier League predictions in haiku form. (Odds and Sods)
• Premier League predictions in scantily-clad form. (The Offside)
• But is the Prem eating itself? (Twohundredpercent)
• CFL players hit a little close to home. (Deadspin)
• They play footy in Laos? Really? (World Footy News)
• Argentine barra bravas are turning on each other. (Pitch Invasion)
• Brazilian football sparks homophobia. (William K. Wolfrum)
• German football fans, however, have their priorities straight. (We Are the Postmen)
• The NFL upgrades instant replay to HD. About damn time. (Sports Illustrated)
• Why is Steve Largent railing against Google? (Ars Technica)
• Most expensive football road trip ever. (FanHouse)
• “It was almost better when he was sitting.” (Washington Post)
• For one yokozuna, a life without football is not worth living. (Das FanHaus)
• Carlito sings! (Who Ate All the Pies)

I’m going to gorge on more types of football this weekend than you could possibly imagine, and it all starts tomorrow morning with the first Premier League match — Sunderland v. Tottenham Hotspur at 7:45 AM on Setanta. Granted, I’ll probably be watching all these games on DVR delay, including the Hawthorn v. Brisbane game that starts at midnight Eastern Time, but I’ll be watching.

Whatever your football, enjoy the games tomorrow.

Devin Hester couldn’t top this if he tried. His gridiron isn’t long enough.

Toronto Argonauts running back Dominique Dorsey tied a Canadian Football League record by returning a missed field goal 129 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter of Thursday’s 29-27 overtime loss to the Montreal Alouettes.

Dorsey tied the record held by teammate Bashir Levingston, who set the mark on June 28 in a 24-22 win over the B.C. Lions.

Naturally, Toronto lost the game after a 22-yard field goal by Ben Cahoon, a slotback who served as the backup to the backup placekicker, who was ejected for “objectionable conduct.” The only objectionable conduct I’ve seen from a kicker was Bill Gramatica’s celebratory leap that resulted in a torn ACL.

Actually, that’s not true. Anyone named Gramatica and Sauerbrun tends to be quite objectionable in general…

Many nations on our lonely little planet are fully capable of supporting professional leagues in more than one code of football. In most European countries, soccer is the top game, and rugby is usually the second code of choice among sports fans. In Australia, they have four professional leagues — the AFL, the NRL, the A-League and the hemisphere-wide Super 14. In America, the NFL rules all, with leagues like MLS and USL slowly finding their way into the national sports scene.

Then there’s Canada, which, as Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow informs us, is is celebrating Canada Day, that glorious northern holiday that commemorates the forming of the Canadian Confederation 140 years ago today. The CFL is still the top domestic football league in Canada, and average attendance in this week’s season-opening CFL games was 27,875. Only Molson Stadium in Montreal managed to attract a mere 20,202 for the Alouettes-Roughriders game, and many attributed that to heavy rains in the forecast. (UPDATE: Someone in the comments informed me that Molson Stadium only seats 20,202, so the game was actually a sellout.)

But was it the rain? Or were Canadians more focused on another football code?

The folks at Pitch Invasion took a closer look at how big soccer is getting in the Great White North, noting that the FIFA Under-20 World Cup is nearly sold out. Nearly 60,000 people filled Olympic Stadium in Montreal to watch Poland’s 1-0 upset of Brazil. How many of those people chose soccer over the CFL this weekend?

Likewise, the Skydom… er, Rogers Centre was hardly filled to capacity for the B.C. Lions-Toronto Argonauts match on Friday — to the CFL’s credit, nearly 30,000 people attended the game — but Toronto F.C., which plays at the 20,000-seat BMO Field, has sold out their season tickets and have 3,000 people on a waiting list.

It’s not just T.F.C. that Canadian fans are supporting, though. 12,844 fans went to the Claude-Robillard Sports Complex in Montreal on Friday night to watch a USL First Division match between the Montreal Impact and the Puerto Rico Islanders. Likewise, the Vancouver Whitecaps average attendance has been 5,098, and Swangard Stadium only holds 5,722.

Keep in mind that USL is a step below MLS on the North American football ladder, and the quality of football is probably equivalent to Football League One, which is England’s third division. Yet the fans in Montreal and Vancouver support their clubs nearly as much as the fans in Toronto.

This begs the question — how long will it be before these Canadian clubs decide to break away from American leagues and form their own Canadian league? After all, Canada did get to the semifinals of the Gold Cup and might have upset the USA side were it not for a questionable offside flag. The fan base in Canada seems much more ready to embrace this football code than the USA, and not only is the fan base for soccer growing in Canada, but so is the quality of play. The Whitecaps and Impact are both in the Top 3 of the USL First Division, and while Toronto F.C. is still an expansion team, its future looks promising.

Yes, they would still need five other clubs to form the soccer equivalent of the CFL, but the country sure looks like it could support that within ten years, doesn’t it?

We’ll never agree on how to play rugby, will we?

We all agree on the basic laws of the Association football game. Interpretations vary from nation to nation, but for the most part, it’s the same game wherever you go, which has helped make it the world’s most popular football code.

But we can’t agree on one set of laws for rugby football, can we? It’s bad enough that the game was split in the nation where it was born, but then it evolved into something completely different in North America. There’s no way to put this game back together again in such a way that the whole world can play by one set of rules, is there?

Oh, sure, you can change the rules that are out there now. Rugby unions around the world are now testing out a series of Experimental Law Variations, or ELVs, that are speeding up the game and garnering rave reviews from players and fans alike. They won’t be in place in time for the 2007 Rugby World Cup, but they might prove to make the game more interesting by the time the next World Cup rolls around in 2011.

Meanwhile, rugby league pundits are suggesting that the current game has gotten stale, and perhaps some rules changes are required to make things more interesting. Rugby league has its own World Cup in 2008, and whether anything in the game changes between now and then remains to be seen.

What would really help rugby is for these unions and leagues to get everyone together and agree on one set of rules by which everyone can play — rugby reunification, if you will. This century-old split in the code may be the only thing that’s preventing rugby from becoming as popular around the world as, say, soccer or basketball. If everyone could get on the same page, maybe rugby football could become as big as Association football, rather than akin to HD-DVD v. Blu-ray.

Alas, this may just be wishful thinking. We humans are a tribal sort, and there’s always that us v. them mentality lurking about — our club is better than your club, our football game is better than your football game, and so on. This is why the NFL and AFL will always have uphill battles when trying to spread their games to other countries. The rest of the world just doesn’t play football like that.

Canadians aren’t just crazy about their association football. They love their 110-yard gridiron, too, and with the Canadian Football League season starting tomorrow night, the good folks at The Boatmen Blog and Sports Grumblings have their team previews ready for all to peruse.

There are reports that Eric Crouch, Akili Smith and Shaun King are all challenging for starting QB jobs in the CFL. Wasn’t Shaun King a bust in Arena Football recently? When I become famous, I want his agent.

In case you hadn’t noticed, the Canadian Football League season begins this month. Training camps for CFL clubs opened last weekend, and the first preseason game between the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts is this Saturday.

I won’t go into the whole reason why Canadians only have three downs instead of four — mostly because I already explained that here — but I will mention that a couple of recognizable names will be wearing Canadian uniforms this season. Former Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch is in camp in Toronto, though he’s still behind septuagenarian Damon Allen on the depth chart, and Anthony Dorsett Jr., defensive back and son of the Dallas Cowboys great, is also on the Argo’s roster.

Know what’s most shocking about that last story? Tony Dorsett’s son is 33 years old. I’m not that much older, but hearing that sure made me feel ancient…

I’ll try to find a decent CFL preview here before the season kicks off. I wonder how attendance for the Argos’ opener will compare to attendance for Toronto F.C., which has seen packed houses and flying seat cushions as of late.

For the first week of this new blog format, we’ll take a look at the six most popular football games on the planet, in no particular order but the one I choose, and give a brief overview of where they come from and where they might be going.

I know exactly what you’re thinking.

Why does Canadian football get its own post? Isn’t football in Canada, like everything else in Canada, pretty much the same as it is in America, but just different enough that it can call itself “Canadian?”

Perhaps. It takes a few minutes to get accustomed to the 12-on-12, 110-yard, three-down football they play in Canada, especially with all the pre-snap motion of the wide receivers and the end zones bigger than Jerry Jones’ ego. Ultimately, though, Canadian football and American football share a lot of similarities, and as a result, a lot of American players who can’t make the NFL end up in the CFL. Some would argue that this the reason Canada is one of the few countries on our lonely little planet where football is not the number one sport. I think it has more to do with all that ice, but that’s just me.

We should give a little credit to Canada, though, because Canadians had a much bigger influence on football in America than most people realize…

(More after the jump.)

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