An ode to Canadian football

I have a confession to make: For more than a decade, I’ve been addicted to Canadian football. It’s not the slick, polished product you see on Sunday afternoons in the NFL. No, this is a grittier, quirkier version of the game that feels like it was cooked up by a mad scientist. Even though it’s July, the CFL season is already in full swing, and if you haven’t been paying attention, you’re missing out on one of the most entertaining spectacles in sports. With only nine teams in Canada’s largest cities, it’s incredibly easy to follow the entire league. Games are played Thursday through Sunday. And the best part? It’s all free to watch on TSN+. The CFL YouTube channel even posts excellent 10-minute recaps of each game for those of us with short attention spans.

But why should you care about a league that, at least for the better part of the past three decades, seemed perpetually on the brink of extinction? For starters, the games are fascinating. The rouge point, or single, is just one of many funky Canadian rules that exemplify the CFL’s charm. It’s awarded when a team kicks the ball into or through the opponent’s end zone and the receiving team fails to return it out. This rule adds many layers of strategy, especially in the close games that are far more common in the CFL than in the NFL. Imagine a team purposely conceding a single point to gain better field position — it happens more often than you’d think. This is riveting sport: 12 men on the field, lightning-fast pre-snap motion that would make an NFL referee’s head spin, and quarterbacks who run like their lives depend on it (because, given the crushing hits they take, they might).

Take Chris Streveler, for instance. The jacked former NFL player is again serving as the short-yardage quarterback for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and he might just be the fastest quarterback in either league. Watching Streveler burst through the line is like seeing a tiger released from its cage. Then there’s A.J. Ouellette of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a hard-running former Ohio University college star whose headbutting of opponents calls to mind the bruising style of former Madden cover boy Peyton Hillis. And I certainly can’t forget Brady Oliveira of the Blue Bombers, who’s signed long-term and seems destined to go down in history as the greatest Canadian running back ever.

It’s worth noting that Canadian skill position stars are few and far between in the CFL. Teams typically allocate their quota spots to American runners and throwers and use Canadians to fill out the offensive and defensive lines. That’s what makes a player like Oliveira so special: He stuck around. Even Nathan Rourke, the best Canadian quarterback since the great Russ Jackson prowled the gridiron for Ottawa in the 1960s, quickly made for the NFL after he had a single successful season in the CFL.

Oliveira’s success is noteworthy because what truly sets the CFL apart is its commitment to being unabashedly Canadian. While the NHL can’t keep its stars north of the border and the Toronto Raptors are Canada’s lone NBA outpost, the CFL stands as a proud bastion of Canuck job creation. The league has strict rules about the number of Canadian players each team must field. It’s a level of populist protectionism in the Great Liberal North that makes the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 look downright cosmopolitan. 

This dedication to homegrown talent leads to some fascinating quirks. Counting the aforementioned Rourke, there have been a grand total of three Canadian starting quarterbacks in the past 45 years. It’s as if Canada decided to outsource the game’s most important position to Americans while insisting that all its linemen grow up on a strict diet of poutine and Tim Hortons.

Quotas aside, the rules of Canadian football create a game that’s undeniably faster-paced and more unpredictable than its American counterpart. The field is longer and wider, which means more room for chaos. The goal posts are at the front of the end zone, turning every field goal attempt into a high-stakes game of “don’t hit the big yellow uprights.” The three-down system means teams are always in desperation mode, leading to more passing plays and wild scrambles. 

In the CFL, a period can’t end on a penalty. So even if time expires, a penalty can extend the game. Add in the fact that coaches have only one timeout per half and you’ve got a recipe for nonstop action. Compare this to the NFL’s commercial-laden final minutes, where teams milk the play clock and games often grind to a halt. In the CFL, those last three minutes are a lightning-fast shoot-out. It’s football distilled to its purest, most exciting form — a far cry from the NFL’s stop-start war of attrition.

“No Lead Is Safe” is the league’s rallying cry. It’s like watching a normal football game with the fast-forward button permanently jammed.

But perhaps the most endearing aspect of the CFL is its fan base. Described by some critics as “pale, stale, and male,” it’s a group that wears its devotion like a badge of honor. These are the Tory die-hards who brave subzero temperatures to watch meaningless late-season games in Edmonton and Regina, who can recite obscure Grey Cup facts from the 1950s, and who still argue passionately about whether Doug Flutie or Damon Allen, NFL Hall of Famer Marcus Allen’s overlooked little brother, was the better quarterback.

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For all its quirks and struggles, the CFL represents something increasingly rare in modern sports: authenticity. It’s not trying to be the NFL. It’s content to be its own weird, wonderful self. As we dive into the 2024 season, there are plenty of storylines to follow. Will the Montreal Alouettes prove last year’s Grey Cup victory wasn’t a fluke? And will the storied Hamilton Tiger-Cats ever win another championship — they last hoisted the Grey Cup in 1999 after dominating the 1960s — or are they destined to become the Cleveland Browns of the Great White North? 

You might just find yourself becoming one of those pale, stale, male fans who can’t imagine autumn without the grace and brutality of three-down football.

Oliver Bateman is a journalist, historian, and co-host of the What’s Left? podcast. Visit his website: www.oliverbateman.com.