MONDAY RUNDOWN: HOPSON WEIGHS IN

Monday was a great day to dissect the 110th Grey Cup and Montreal’s stunning 28-24 victory over Winnipeg to claim the 2023 CFL championship in Hamilton. We also put a wrap on a busy weekend with NHL and NFL leftovers on Episode #1,124.

The daily Key Auto Group poll question was a fun one, asking what’s the greatest Grey Cup game of all-time – 1989, 2005, 2023 or Other? At press time, 1989 was leading handily.

Canadian Football Hall of Fame executive and former Rider President Jim Hopson joined the show for a revealing chat. Jim feels the 2013 Grey Cup was the best (a 45-23 Saskatchewan win over Hamilton in Regina) but felt the CFL really came off well this weekend. He discussed the current problems with traditional flagship franchises in Edmonton and Saskatchewan, and didn’t mince words when it came to the Green & White.

“The last two years have been hard,” Hopson began. “Especially now with what we saw what happened with Cody (Fajardo) and Jason Maas, and the kind of success they had once they left here. I mean I don’t think there was any choice except for Cody to leave after what had happened here last year. The fans had turned on him, the organization lost confidence. It just wasn’t good and so he needed a fresh start.

“But it tells you about the organization and the culture, and what’s going on in that locker room. Two years in a row we had an epic collapse in the middle of the year and I think that speaks a lot to the culture of the locker room. In fact, I always believed it was the whole organization. I didn’t think it was just having a good team and a good culture there. You had to have it in the office, at the Board level, it trickled down. We’ve gotta get back to that. The new coach has to be someone who’s capable of bringing in a strong culture.

“Rod you were here when Kent Austin was here and the culture changed rapidly. He came in in his first meeting and said our goal was to win the Grey Cup; anything less would be failure. And we won a Grey Cup. Culture is just so important in any organization.”

TSN Sportscentre anchor Jermain Franklin joined us in Hour 2 to recap the Grey Cup and said that game is always TSN’s signature broadcast. Franky spent 17 years as Calgary bureau reporter so he admitted he’s keeping close tabs on the Flames and the Stampeders, but is following the Maple Leafs the closest now.

If you missed the show you can catch the replay at 5:00 pm ET on Game+TV, on our YouTube channel or wherever you enjoy your podcasts.

See you at 12 pm ET on Tuesday!

RP