THROWIN’ ELBOWS WITH BRENDAN MCGUIRE

1. INJURED FAJARDO NOT GOOD ENOUGH: The Riders moved the ball well enough to trade punches in Sunday’s West Final but don’t kid yourself, it was the defence that gave them a chance until the bitter end. Winning while failing to reach the end zone is an impossibility in this game and the Roughriders had no business being in it as long as they were. The Bombers took it 20-13. It’s been a good year for this crew that overachieved more than perhaps any other team this season. Conductor Cody Fajardo and his symphony did just enough so many times this year but at less than 100% on Sunday, he just wasn’t good enough. 

2. McADOO PLAYCALLING NOT GOOD ENOUGH: The entire Rider coaching staff, other than Craig Dickenson, is heading to free agency. Offensive play-caller Stephen McAdoo deserves kudos for getting as much as he did out of a career backup quarterback but he also bears blame for not getting it done, despite having the advantage of arguably the league’s best defence. That’s 3 years in a row now the Rider offense has sputtered out of the playoffs with no Grey Cup appearance. Time for a new look on offence with a new offensive coordinator.

3. MOST DEVASTATING LOSS SINCE: The 13^th man. Feels like déjà vu all over again in another season the Grey Cup will be played at Calgary’s Mahon Stadium. Maybe it’s the curse of the Calgary Grey Cup?

4. NO ROOF NEEDED HERE: It was such a perfect night for football. Beautiful, crisp, autumn air. The flags on the goal-post didn’t move an inch all game long. Outdoor ball, even in November, is the best. Dropping $200 million dollars on a roof for the new stadium that would ruin the ambience was, and still is, a really dumb idea.

5. TICATS HAD EASIER ROAD: The Ticats are now 16-3 on the year and have grabbed most of those games against western opponents (9 of them). But don’t kid yourself, the tabbies had a much easier path with their first-place pole position never in doubt. That wouldn’t have been the case, had they played in the west. I don’t want to say the Tiger-Cats haven’t faced adversity this year as they did lose their starting quarterback, after all. But don’t compare the road Mike O’Shea’s Blue Bombers had to navigate to Hamilton’s. Not even close. Winnipeg will be underdogs but they shouldn’t be by much.

6. WPG-HAM GREY CUP GOOD FOR CFL: Nice to see an original matchup once in a while and that’s hard to do in a 9-team league. The 35-year stretch since the last Hamilton-Winnipeg Grey Cup should be just what the doctor ordered and good for ratings right across the country. I’m not pretending that the Riders missing out is good for ratings when we know the opposite is true. But it is nice to see the 2 longest suffering fanbases get a crack at this just like it was great for the league to have Ottawa end it’s 40-year Grey Cup drought back in 2016.  

7. CFL PLAYOFF TV RATINGS: Interesting piece from 3 Down Nation about the Rider-Winnipeg game beating the CTV national news by 50% on Sunday night and the East final beating all NFL broadcasts in Canada, too. But that’s not all! The best Super Bowl ratings in Canada topped out at 4.33 million viewers for the average audience last year while a Grey Cup will only fetch between 3.0 and 4.0 million viewers. What the CFL naysayers fail to point out is that while the Grey Cup is on cable-channel TSN, the Super Bowl is on CTV. Being on network television automatically gives any event a major bump. If Bell media is serious about promoting the CFL, they should give it a fair shot to once again, overtake the Super Bowl in Canada by putting the game back on CTV.

8. RON MacLEAN’S RAMBLE: He was always pretty good on his own and never really needed Don Cherry to begin with. If Bobby Orr is mad at anyone for throwing Grapes under the bus, he should watch the movie “Red Army” and see first-hand the garbage that European players had to put up when they first started playing in North America, spurred on largely by people like Don Cherry. Ron MacLean shouldn’t have to answer for what Don Cherry said.

9. WICKENHEISER TOPS HOF: The Hockey Hall of Fame has been the easiest HOF to get into for many, many years. Sergei Zubov is in this year’s class. Good penalty killer and all but really, Sergei Zubov? Hayley Wickenheiser and what she has meant to the sport transcends any of the other inductees by a country mile. The day of a strong women’s professional league is coming and she will be the ultimate pioneer to thank for making it happen.  

10. GREY CUP WEATHER: For those of you who wanted an October playoff and Grey Cup would have had a +3 degree Celsius high for Grey Cup Sunday had it been played on the final Sunday of October or first Sunday in November. This coming Grey Cup Sunday’s forecast high for Calgary is……. +5 with no wind. I’m just sayin.

(Follow Brendan on Twitter at @brendanhowardmc)