The CFL is back

Week One of the 2025 Canadian Football League season is in the books, and it was quite a ride.

Opening night saw the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Ottawa Redblacks combine for 57 points and 764 yards in Saskatchewan’s 31-26 victory.

Friday night the Montreal Alouettes thumped the defending Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts, 28-10. The Als’ defense starred in this one, forcing three turnovers and registering a scoop-and-score while limiting Toronto to just 276 yards of total offense.

On Saturday Nathan Rourke threw three TD passes to help the BC Lions subdue the Edmonton Elks, 31-14. The winners scored 28 of their points in the second half.

Being a Hamilton Tiger-Cats fan, though, the main event for me was yesterday’s showdown between the Tabbies and Calgary Stampeders. As usual, Hamilton lost, with Stampeder running back Dedrick Mills tallying three scores.

The 38-26 Calgary victory marked the Ti-Cats’ 20^th season-opening loss in the last 22 campaigns, and sixth in a row.

That’s … that’s not good.

Regardless, I always look forward to CFL games, but for some reason my excitement level is higher than usual this year. It reminds me of those times as a kid when many of my friends were well into their Little League baseball seasons and I was in my backyard kicking a pale orange Hutch football over a hanging branch I pretended was a crossbar.

An appreciation for baseball didn’t come until years later. But football? I was always ready, even when the temper of the summer sun was at its hottest.

And after a lifetime as a fan, 30 years as a newspaper sports writer and these last few years as a journalistic has-been, I’ve become practically reverent about the Canadian game.

It’s not like I’m left wanting for gridiron action … there was only a couple of months between the end of the last NFL season and the start of the current United Football League campaign. In addition, the European League of Football is in its fifth season and continues to grow.

There’s plenty to like about all three. Elite athletes play in the game’s biggest league; guys keep their big league dreams alive in the UFL; and the ELF showcases homegrown talent.

But they aren’t the CFL, a circuit that revels in its uniqueness.

I found myself defending – and promoting – the league before I was even a teenager.

When games were broadcast stateside starting in 1972, they became a staple of my summer viewing. My dad watched with me, but his enthusiasm was dampened by the three downs to make a first down rule.

“I can’t get used to seeing a team have to punt on third down,” he’d say. “They need four downs.”

I respectfully disagreed. I loved (and love) the urgency of it all. There’s none of this “run the ball to feel out the defense” stuff. In the CFL, there are no downs to waste.

Twelve-on-12 competition, a field that’s 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, 20-yard deep end zones, rouges, all backs allowed in motion toward the line of scrimmage, no fair catches on punts … I embrace it all.

In later years I’d talk to friends and co-workers about the CFL and some would say things like, “It’s fun to watch until ‘real’ football starts.”

I still wince when I hear that, and it prompts me to launch into a sermon about American football using the “three-to-make 10” rule until 1912. That knowledge drop would inevitably lead me to pronounce the north of the border game as “original” tackle football.

I enjoy making that argument.

And not only will I proudly defend the CFL to anyone who wants to argue about it, I’ll advocate for each of the nine teams (even though the Ti-Cats are my favorite). Regardless of which side you cheer for, I fully support your choice.

When it comes to the Canadian Football League, I want every stadium to be packed, every game to be entertaining and every franchise to succeed.

So now it’s on to Week Two. BC and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers start things off on Thursday, Montreal and Ottawa tangle on Friday, and Saturday features Calgary at Toronto and Saskatchewan at Hamilton. It should be another fun three days of football.

There are other leagues out there – and good ones – but there’s nothing quite like the Canadian Football League.