OUT OF THE TUNNEL: PLAYOFFS ARE IN SIGHT

With the Saskatchewan Roughriders 29-24 victory over the lowly Edmonton Elks on Saturday night, the Green & White sealed a home playoff date in the opening round of the playoffs. It will be the Calgary Stampeders coming to town looking to continue their 2021 dominance of the Riders. Winnipeg will await the winner of that game in the Western Final.

The Toronto Argonauts are the east division champions with their easy 31-12 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and will await the winner of the Eastern Semi-Final between Hamilton and the Montreal Alouettes.

The only thing left to figure out is who will host the first round Eastern Semi-Final matchup.

Hamilton will host the Saskatchewan Roughriders next week and with a win, they will earn the home playoff date. The question with that game is what team will the Roughriders bring?

What will more than likely happen is Cody Fajardo will start at quarterback for the first quarter and maybe the second. From there, he will sit, and backup Isaac Harker will come in and mop up. As for the rest of the roster, Saskatchewan will probably keep a handful of key veterans at home and activate the future of the football club from the practice roster.

Winnipeg welcomes Calgary and it will probably be more of the same on both sides. After sitting a week, Bombers quarterback, Zach Collaros will see action in the first half with Sean McGuire coming in to finish things up. Calgary will do the same with Bo Levi Mitchell and Jake Maier.

The Als will try to keep their home playoff dreams alive when the Ottawa Redblacks roll into Montreal on Friday night.

One of the more intriguing things from the final week of the season is the Edmonton Elks finishing off their string of three games in seven nights on the road. It began Saturday with their loss at Mosaic Stadium in Regina, then on Tuesday night, the Elks will be in Toronto only to fly all the way back to Vancouver and play the B.C. Lions on Friday night (this is a result of the early season COVID-19 issues).

Who knows what will come and if Edmonton can even stay in any of these games. Sure, they have been granted an expanded roster for this stretch but it has the stink of awful football to come.

It’s an appropriate finish to an awful season from Edmonton. Between the COVID-19 issues, the front office havoc and a winless season at home, the Elks will be happy to bid farewell to the 2021 season. 

There are two Ups from this week of football:

The first is that the CFL regular season will mercifully come to an end. This low-scoring and at times incredibly ugly year will conclude and only a stellar playoff can wash some of the bad taste out of people’s mouths.

The other up is all the football played in Canada outside of the CFL.

USports is on the path to the Vanier Cup and out west it will be Saskatchewan and Manitoba battling for the Hardy Cup. The nation’s top ranked team, the Montreal Carabins won the  Dunsmore Cup by beating the Laval Rouge et Or 28-19 and await the winner of the Hardy Cup in the Uteck. Out in Atlantic Canada, Bishop’s and St. FX will face off in the Loney Bowl. Ontario sees long-time rivals meet in the 113^thYates Cup as Queen’s welcomes Western Ontario.

Junior football across Canada is whittling their teams down towards the Canadian Bowl.

We will get to the western Canadian teams in a bit but out east the London Beefeaters will make their way to Windsor to face the St. Clair Fratmen with the winner heading to the national championship.

This Week in Canada West

Hardy Cup semifinals

Manitoba Bisons 43
Alberta Golden Bears 17

In a game that was delayed by 45-minutes because of a snowstorm in Winnipeg, the Manitoba Bisons punched their first ticket to the Hardy Cup since 2014 with a 43-17 victory.

This game was over before the opening kickoff as the Golden Bears looked like they wanted no part of the snowy conditions. The Bisons trampled them on the ground with 233 first half rushing yards and a 36-3 lead heading into the locker room. 

It was all cruise control en route to the victory.

It was running back by committee for Manitoba with Michael Ritchott (85 yards), Noah Anderson (73 yards) and Breydon Stubbs (51 yards) combining for 209 of the Bisons’ 264 yards on the ground.

Saskatchewan Huskies 38
UBC Thunderbirds 17

On a beautiful afternoon in Saskatoon, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies locked up their return to the Hardy Cup for the third straight season by rolling over the UBC Thunderbirds.

This wasn’t the usual cold-weather victory for the Huskies as Mason Nyhus threw for 381 yards and three touchdowns in the victory. Sam Baker had 148 yards receiving and a touchdown and Daniel Perry added 143 yards receiving and a touchdown as well for the Huskies.

Hardy Cup

Manitoba Bisons at Saskatchewan Huskies

Saturday, November 20
Griffiths Stadium, Saskatoon

This will be the first time since 2010 that the Calgary Dinos will not be hosting the Hardy Cup final at McMahon stadium and the first time the Dinos are not in the final since 2007.

Griffiths Stadium in Saskatoon will host their first final since 2009 when they lost to Calgary 39-38. The last time the Huskies won the Hardy Cup was in 2018 and the Manitoba Bisons last won in 2007.

The Huskies won the regular season matchup over the Bisons 41-12 on October 30 on a day that saw Saskatchewan’s defence hold Manitoba to just 246 yards of total offence.

This Week in the Prairie Football Conference

Prairie Football Conference Championship game

Saskatoon Hilltops 29
Regina Thunder 9

The clock rang midnight on the Regina Thunder’s undefeated season with a heartbreaking 29-9 loss to the Saskatoon Hilltops in front of a great crowd at Mosaic Stadium.

The Hilltops took the lead early and held it for the whole game as they were able to get touchdowns while the Thunder only managed three field goals.

Saskatoon got two touchdowns on the ground from quarterback Damon Dutton, a rushing touchdown from running back Boston Davidsen and Boden Marley had the other score in the victory.

The Hilltops will continue their quest for a seventh straight Canadian Bowl title next week in Langley, B.C. against the Rams. The Rams won the B.C. title yesterday with a 7-4 victory over the Okanagan Sun.

Canadian to Watch in the NCAA

Tavius Robinson (5^th year senior)
Defensive line
University of Mississippi
6’7”, 265lbs.
Guelph, Ontario
High School – Guelph VCI 

The former Guelph Griffin has flourished in his two seasons with the Ole Miss Rebels. In 2020, Tavius Robinson had 18 tackles including 1.5 tackles for a loss but it’s been a 2021 break out season for the Canadian.

Robinson has three sacks this season including one in their big 29-19 victory over the number 11 ranked Texas A&M Aggies this past Saturday. He also has 24 total tackles and a pair of quarterback hurries in 2021.

Professional football is in Robinson’s future as he is on the 2021 Reese’s Senior Bowl Watchlist and one of the top ranked players in the 2022 CFL Draft in May. 

(RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF)