It's Grey Cup weekend.
But who really cares?
There was a time when the nation ground to a halt on a Sunday in late November to gather around the TV with friends and family, tune into the CBC and listen to Don Wittman call the big game.
It's been 10 years since the CFL could be seen on TV from coast to coast to coast. Since the start of the 2008 season, if TSN is not in your cable package, there is no Grey Cup for you.
In Prince George on Sunday afternoon, CKPG will have a week in review local news wrap and an encore presentation of Quiz Me. Meanwhile, the three national networks will have other programming. Global will air a Wolverine movie and CBC will have figure skating, World Cup skiing from Lake Louise and a Christmas movie.
CTV will provide the real slap in the face. Even though they are owned by Bell Media - the same group that owns TSN - they will not show the Grey Cup. Instead, CTV viewers in Prince George will get a doubleheader of American football - the Chicago Bears against the Philadelphia Eagles in the early game, followed by the Seattle Seahawks in San Francisco to thump the lowly 49ers.
Surely CTV will do the proper thing in Calgary and Toronto, since the Stampeders and the Argonauts will be in Ottawa playing for the Grey Cup?
Right.
NFL doubleheaders in both of those cities, too. To add insult to injury, Toronto viewers of CTV will get the Buffalo Bills game - the Bills being Toronto's regional NFL team, just down the QEW away - at the same time the Argos will take to the field.
As Stephen Brunt pointed out in a Maclean's article, the Argos are fifth on the depth chart when it comes to professional sports in The Centre of the Universe. The Leafs, the Blue Jays, the Raptors and Toronto FC have more fans and are followed more closely than their CFL squad.
Not so long ago, CFL players were household names. The only place in Canada where that is still true would be Saskatchewan. And even though their Roughriders lost a heartbreaker in the final minute to Toronto, they'll still gather to watch the Grey Cup.
On TSN, of course.
Even in Regina, CTV will have an NFL doubleheader. The team in green they'll be able to watch are the Eagles, not their beloved Roughriders.
Sadly, the CFL continues to earn its irrelevance. League commissioner Randy Ambrosie proclaimed Friday that there is still isn't enough scientific evidence to link concussions to brain disease and trauma.
Perhaps he was told by the league's lawyers to say that, since the CFL is a defendant in a $200-million class-action lawsuit on this issue. To put that dollar figure in context, the entire league and every team that plays in it could be had for less than that.
Contrast the CFL's stance on concussions to the NFL, which settled its lawsuit out of court and has publicly agreed there is a link, although it is still working with the players on rule changes to make the game safer for its players. The NFL was slow to come around and may have only changed its mind for legal and public relations reasons but at least it is no longer a member of the Flat Earth Society.
The CFL cares so little about head injuries that it still insists on placing its goal posts at the front of the end zone, in the field of play, instead of at the back and out of harm's way.
And in 2017, the CFL still has a team in Edmonton called the Eskimos.
This week, both the prime minister and the Alberta premier urged the team to make a change. The league could put the NFL to shame (the Washington Redskins) and Major League Baseball (the Cleveland Indians) but the nickname persists, to the embarrassment of everyone except CFL fans.
The league prevails, thanks to that small (except for Saskatchewan), fiercely loyal fan base across Canada (here's looking at you, Dad - I won't call until at least 7:30 Sunday night) that sees watching three-down, 110-yard, three-minute warning, a point for missing a field goal football as part of their patriotic duty. It's better because it's our game, they insist, sticking to the Canadians are better because we're not Americans mantra.
They will be the ones tuning in Sunday afternoon, soaking up the history and pageantry in a soothing but shrinking bubble of old-time Canadiana, singing along with Shania Twain during the halftime show.
