Bailey McLean/CFL.ca
Hello, CFL fans.
I’d just like to state, unequivocally, and may I just say without even a pale shadow of a doubt, that there is no such thing as divine interven– hang on a sec, I just want to watch this Joseph Zema punt….
Here are the Week 21 takeaways.
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BLOW, WINDS, AND CRACK YOUR CHEEKS! RAGE!
That incredible, incredible turn of events late in the Winnipeg/Montreal game was some kind of other-worldly drama, unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in my more than fifty years of watching the CFL, and my more than ten years of catching Shakespeare’s best works at the Stratford Festival.
Up top, that headline I’ve got there is ripped from “King Lear,” but I’m wondering if something from “The Tempest” might be more worthy. The way that weather changed – with such speed and ferocity – just as the Alouettes were getting ready to punt, I imagine Bombers’ coach Mike O’Shea standing on the sideline as some sort of tan shorts Prospero, lifting a yard-marker over his head as though it were a kind of mystical staff, conjuring up the forces that would undo the Als, just in the nick of time.
Goodness sakes. Did Montreal coach Jason Maas tell somebody that “only an act of God” could keep his team from winning this game, or something?
Division titles have been won in spectacular fashion many times during my lifetime. But I’m certain that I’ve ever seen anything like that.
More than a half century later, the great northern league can still surprise a fella.
A PUNTER FOR MOP! A PUNTER FOR MOP!
Send out the ballots again, I want a re-vote.
When Edmonton’s Jake Julien ended his team’s season with a victory over Toronto on a punt single in overtime, it put a capper on a fabulous game by the second-year punter, who’d actually done a masterful job of NOT kicking for singles earlier in the game.
Julien played lawn darts with two punts that landed inside the Toronto five-yard line and he finished the game with six in total for an average of 51.8 yards. The single travelled more than the 54 yards he was credited with when his rocket of a hoof sailed over Toronto’s David Ungerer III back at the dead ball line.
Julien ended the season with a record average of 54.0, obliterating the previous mark of 50.6, set in 2005 by Winnipeg’s Jon Ryan.
Y’all spent so much time, this season, trying to make the case for a defensive player for MOP that you overlooked the punter, people.
So again, I say. Re-cast the ballots!
THEY GOT THE TONICS THEY WERE CRAVING
Both the Ottawa REDBLACKS and the Montreal Alouettes got the performances they were looking for heading into the playoffs.
The REDBLACKS – losers of five straight prior to their 37-31 victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats – looked much more like the team that sported an 8-3-1 record at the two-thirds mark of the season. And to cap the win by preserving it with a goal line stand by the defence must surely be a shot of nitro to the team’s psyche as the prep for the Eastern Semi against the Argos in Toronto.
And Montreal?
It was going to be a win for them until a coven of Blue Bomber witches were finally able to control the weather with one of those spells they got out of a book at the library, stirring up a gale at far off McGill.
The Als, who came into the game with first place in the East sewn up long ago but also carrying a record of 2-3-1 in their previous six, looked to be heading into the bye with a bounce-back win after being humbled by the BC Lions the week before.
“Up until that kick, I felt great about how this game went,” said Montreal head coach Jason Maas afterward. “We’re disappointed in that locker room but I’m also very excited about the locker room because of what we just did. It looked like we had everything to play for the way we played. And I love that about our team.”
While we’re on the topic of tonics, I do suppose you can say that the Calgary Stampeders got theirs as well, finally winning a road game when they bested the substitute-heavy Roughriders in Saskatchewan, 27-12.
“A six-month off-season without having this experience, that’d have been difficult,” said quarterback Jake Maier.
THE MONTREAL ALOUETTES HAVE YOU RIGHT WHERE THEY WANT YOU
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The Montreal Alouettes are aware of – or at least they are telling themselves – that nobody believes in them.
“I know nobody has confidence in us because of the last six weeks,” said head coach Jason Maas after the Als’ 28-27 loss to Winnipeg. “If I had to ask you who you’re betting on you probably wouldn’t bet on us. Last year, no one bet on us either.”
While it’s quite true that a great deal of people wrote off the Alouettes even before the 2023 season began, I don’t really believe that there are very many who are underestimating them now, despite four losses in their last seven games of the regular season.
But don’t dismiss that game plan. “Us against the doubters” worked very well for Montreal a year ago, and if Maas can convince his charges that the world at large is once again writing them off, they will be very difficult to beat in the Eastern Final.
Not, you know, “Act of God” difficult. But difficult.
‘TIS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS
A gust of wind in Montreal can be felt 2,300 kilometres away.
While that wild, windy finish at McGill might have been a delightfully weird spectacle to most CFL fans, it was a turn of events that was completely lacking in charm for fans of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
And for the team, too, of course. A gut punch. Was there an emotional letdown for his team when Winnipeg’s good fortune played out?
“Sure felt like it,” Riders head coach Corey Mace told reporters after the loss to Calgary. “It felt like it and I wish it didn’t.”
“There was a lot of adversity for us today,” Mace said a little later in his post-game media conference. “I was really looking for the response to be a little bit better.”
The Riders now must put that disappointment behind them as they prep for this Saturday’s Western Semi-Final against the BC Lions, but at least they know that they’ll be playing a team they handled easily just a couple of weeks ago, and that they’ll have rested starters like Trevor Harris and Rolan Milligan Jr. back in the lineup.
“The eagerness to get to it is certainly there,” said Mace.
AND FINALLY… We don’t talk enough about Toronto receiver Makai Polk. But I get the feeling the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ defence will do plenty of that as they prep for the Eastern Semi-Final this week.
