TrueBlue4ever

Some random, maybe fascinating but largely useless stuff about the upcoming game: In the 108 year history of the Grey Cup, this is the 33rd time a team has returned to the championship game to defend its title. Defending champions are 21-11 in the following year’s game when they return. Since the founding of the CFL in 1958 they are 9-6. This is also the 46th time a team that has lost the previous Grey Cup has gotten back to the big game. Those teams are 22-23 overall, and 16-10 since 1958, in that scenario. Winnipeg and Hamilton are meeting for the 12th time in the Grey Cup game, including the matches where their military teams playing in the 1940’s. This is the most common match-up in Grey Cup history, surpassing the 11 match-ups between Edmonton and Montreal. Since the inception of the CFL in 1958, Montreal and Edmonton have met 8 times. With this year’s match-up, the Bombers and Cats will now tie that record in the CFL era. Winnipeg is 7-4 overall against Hamilton in Grey Cup games, and 6-1 since 1958. This is the 17th re-match in Grey Cup history, and the 10th in the CFL era (sort of, the Bombers and Tiger Cats played each other on 1957 and 58 so there was an overlap in the pre- and Post-CFL era there: the 1958 game is not counted in the “CFL era” stats). Overall, the team that won the first game is 10-6 in the re-match, but only 4-5 in the CFL era (starting with the 1959 Bomber-Cat re-match). Only 4 times have two teams met in 3 consecutive seasons. Here are the full results: 1928-29: Hamilton sweeps Saskatchewan 1937-38: Toronto sweeps Winnipeg *1945-47: Toronto defends twice over Winnipeg, sweeping the 3 games *1954-56: Edmonton goes 3-0 over Montreal *1957-59: Hamilton wins the first meeting with Winnipeg, the Bombers win the re-match, then defend their title in year 3 1961-62: Bombers win both against Hamilton (this is the first time two clubs will play 5 Grey Cups against each other in a 6 year span, Edmonton and Montreal will repeat this feat in the 1970’s) 1963-64:Hamilton and BC split with the Cats winning the first and the Leos taking the re-match 1974-75: Montreal beats Edmonton in the opener but lose the re-match 1977-79: Esks/Als again for 3 straight, Alouettes win the first, give up the title in year 2, and the Eskimos defend in year 3. 1998-99: Calgary beats Hamilton in the first one, Cats flip the script the next year 2002-03: Montreal/ Edmonton once again, Als win the first one but Esks spoil the title defence the next year 2009-10: Montreal sweeps Saskatchewan, including the infamous “13th man” penalty in game one. The Tiger Cats get a home game this year. This is the 11th time they have hosted, and amazingly only once in the prior 10 games have they not appeared as a team in the game they hosted (Toronto vs Edmonton in 1996). They are 6-3 as the “home team” in the other 9 Grey Cups held in Hamilton., although the first 8 were before the rotational system came into play. Before 1941, almost every game was held in Hamilton or Toronto (Ottawa did not host until 1925 when they beat the Winnipeg Tammany Tigers as the home team, Montreal got its first home game in 1931 beating the Roughriders), and there was no neutral site, so every year until 1941 was a home game for one of the teams (always in the east). The first “neutral site” game was in 1941 when Toronto hosted the game and Winnipeg beat Ottawa. After that game, Toronto won as the host city 6 times, beating Winnipeg in 1942, 45-47, and 50, and beating Edmonton in 1952. Hamilton lost as the host to Montreal in 1944. That game in Hamilton was the only one in a 14 year span where every other game was in Toronto. The first western Grey Cup was 1955 when Edmonton defeated Montreal in BC. After that game, Toronto and BC rotated the hosting duties, with BC essentially getting every third year. The next host city to have its team appear in the game was BC in 1963, who lost to Hamilton. But the true rotation of Grey Cup host cities did not start until 1965, with the 4 eastern teams and BC hosting. Calgary would get its first Grey Cup in 1975, Edmonton in 1984, Winnipeg in 1991, and Regina in 1995. Since the advent of the full rotational system , 11 teams have played at home in a Grey Cup game before this year. Those home teams are 6-5 overall, including the last 3 times in consecutive years from 2011 to 2013. Calgary and Winnipeg are the only two current CFL teams to have never played in a “home” Grey Cup game. Edmonton is the only franchise to never win a “home” Grey Cup. And finally, Winnipeg and Hamilton have met once before in a “home field” Grey Cup, all the way back in 1935 when the Winnipeg Pegs beat the Tiger Cats to become the first ever western team to win the Grey Cup.

The Bombers are so good…….they can’t even beat themselves, no matter how hard they tried to.

I agree, and I was not trying to defend the call. This was not ticky-tack, I am saying the mindset of both sides is “defer to the other party” so no one stands up and makes the call that needs to be made. Sorry if my post was not clear enough there. It was absolutely a blown call, and command centre has been really bad at many calls this year. An overhaul is due.

I was last row upper deck centre field, so I was as far away from the Jumbotron as you could get. Closer up it was more obvious I am sure. Which begs the question, how bad is the eyesight of the video review officials?

From the stands, it was hard to see the reply on the jumbotron. It was clear that the ball touched the ground, but from a few angles the illusion was that he caught it and dragged it back under control touching the ground, but not using the ground to trap it. My brother watching on TV in Toronto (and not biased for or against either team) said clearly no catch. The replay on sportscentre with the magnified enhanced close-up showed that the ball did indeed hit the ground and roll before he had control. So did the command centre not have access to that enhanced replay? Also, is there still a time limit on how long replays are allowed to take (thought there was a rule on that, maybe I am confusing it for the time allowed to whistle down to the on-field officials about a booth review). In any event, they should not rush to make a decision if it means not getting enough time or angles to properly review a call. One of the biggest problems with video review in my mind is what the rules governing it are. The review booth is instructed to not overturn a call if it is questionable or marginal. They do not want to take away the human element and get involved in ticky-tack penalty calls (close PI or ball spot with a weird camera angle or illegal contact) where the on-field guys are in the closest proximity to call it or not and have a feel for the play (say legal hand fighting vs PI). So unless clearly wrong, do not overturn. That leads to “deference to the on-field guys” instead of “our ruling stands no matter what”. But the on-field officials know there is an eye in the sky to cover them, and I think it leads them to be gunshy and not trust their own calls figuring a video review can get it right later. So you have officials on-field hesitant to make a strong call, a replay booth afraid to overturn them, and both sides deferring to each other as the final arbiter with no one taking charge. Either get rid of video if you want to keep the on-field officials in charge, or give it more power to be the final say, no matter how marginal.

Go back and play as a starter for the guy who he won a Grey Cup with and whose offensive schemes developed his game and showcased him enough to get him a look in The Show and over $1 million in salary? Yeah, who wants that? 🙄 He will go where the money and the opportunity (quite possibly in that order) is best. Loyalty means as much to a player as it does to a team, which is to say not much a sizeable amount of the time, especially where dollars are involved.

If you are truly torn about how to react, maybe ask yourself “if this was a Blue Bomber saying this, how would I feel?” Then ask “if it was a person or team I have no allegiance for a or against either way (real life example: Simone Biles), how would I feel?” Is there a difference based on allegiance? If so, should there be and why? If not, how are you reacting to others whose have clear opinions one way or another. No right or wrong one way to feel, but maybe this approach helps you sort out the ambivalence and what your beliefs and values as a fan and a human being are, and if those stances are the same for each role.

For once, even I am without words.

Paul McCallum’s lawn.

Coaches are not allowed to challenge in the last 3 minutes of the game, only the review booth. At least that is how I understand the rule.

You won’t get a lot of agreement on the Bomber site, but I will say Bomber home Blue and Gold and Argo road with the powder blue pants and numbers with white jerseys is easily the best uniform combo in the league. Would love to see that pairing next week in Steeltown. Some bend don’t break from the Tabbies early. Will Toronto regret those missed red zone opportunities by game’s end?

Get out now and test your footwear. The snow will add a layer of slipperiness to the turf. Tried to black out the memory of 1996 in Edmonton, but Mike Richardson opted for hard plastic baseball cleats in 1992 to punch through the layer of frost at Canadinns. People thought broomball shoes would be better, but he proved all wrong with a 227 yard performance.

Instead of a wall, let’s break the sound barrier with the noise from our seats then. Maybe TSN would like to have another “loudest stadium” contest and we can defend that title too!

Ok, now I am ready to run through a wall.

That’s why we call him eternal optimist. Always glass half full!

This is Whiteouts brain….. This is Whiteouts brain on drugs…… This is Cody Fajardo after a “meet and greet” with the Jeff’s.

The idea was large scale events with lots of people and no social distancing, so sporting events and concerts were a no. At first no restaurant unless with direct family member. Super spreader mentality. But was supposed to be reviewable after a couple of months of government rules changed, so I think some stuff got relaxed.

The Bomber approach to the injured list: The Rider approach:

I would not agree with a statement that sweeping just yet. Early results are very encouraging though.

I think the two teams that matched up best against us are also gone, being Montreal and Calgary. Other than BC, Sask was the best match-up we could have hoped for. Not sure who I would prefer from Hamilton or Toronto. Cats have more talent on paper, but the Argos gave our lines more trouble than any other team this season (albeit with Arbuckle and not MBT). Those games are so long ago though, it’s hard to say how we stack up now.

Less than 1,500 tickets left on Ticketmaster at this point, although that number is always a floating target. Around 250 left in the lower bowl.

Happy to see him flourish after his early struggles had many wanting to cut him.

Can I re-use my offensive post and re-direct it at these two clowns instead? Always ready to pounce and rip the league. How about pointing out all the flaws of their precious MLSE and their complete mismanagement of the Argos and this COVID breach situation? Oh no, because they want so badly for that corporation to get an NFL sniff and cover the “big league” that they ignore the utter disregard for any kind of money or marketing invested in the team they own to build a fan base, and throw stones at the CFL instead. Anyway, I want to apologize to JCon specifically and the entire board for my earlier post. It was uncalled for and not an acceptable comment in any way. I retract the statement but will not delete it as I should not pretend I did not say it and gloss over it. I am sorry.