Lawrence suspension a small step forward,
more work needed
Zach Collaros throws a pass at Roughriders training camp in June. |
In the league’s regular season opener last Thursday between the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders and host Hamilton Tiger-Cats, two obvious dirty hits went down in the first six plays of the game. For a league and a CFL Players’ Association that talked lots in the off-season about player safety, the start of the regular season opener showed there wasn’t any more respect for player safety on the field than there was last year.
On just the fourth play of Thursday’s contest, Roughriders
quarterback Zach Collaros ran for a seven-yard gain and gave himself up on a
feet first slide.
Tiger-Cats linebacker Simoni Lawrence dove and drove his
left shoulder into Collaros’s head. Collaros left the game and didn’t return
after he failed to pass the CFL’s concussion protocol.
Lawrence received a Grade 2 roughing the passer penalty
resulting in a 25-yard gain for Saskatchewan.
Two plays later, Roughriders backup quarterback Cody Fajardo
overthrew a sideline pass to running back William Powell.
After the ball had long sailed over Powell’s head, he was
decked by Tiger-Cats defensive back Delvin Breaux. Breaux received a 15-yard
unnecessary roughness penalty.
The hits thrown by Lawrence and Breaux didn’t need to be
delivered. They were both plays that were brainless and needless.
The Roughriders would score a touchdown on that opening
series and ultimately lost the contest 23-17.
In the aftermath, the Roughriders moved Collaros to the
six-game injured list on Sunday. While the Roughriders didn’t confirm what
Collaros’s injury was, he does have a history of concussion injuries, and it is
pretty easy to draw an educated guess on what his exact injury is.
On Monday, the CFL suspended Lawrence two games for his hit
on Collaros. Commissioner Randy Ambrosie stressed the importance of player
safety in Monday’s press release sent out by the league regarding Lawrence’s
suspension.
Lawrence can appeal the CFL’s ruling under the league’s
collective bargaining agreement with the players. The 30-year-old hasn’t been
previously suspended or fined for dangerous play since joining the league in
2012.
First, I will admit the suspension is a good start, if it
holds up. As a general observation on how these situations were dealt with in
past seasons, it always felt like discipline handed out by the CFL was
toothless.
Brandon Bridge was a head shot victim last season. |
It seems like the only way to get discipline is to handle
things an old school way, where your offensive line basically act as enforcers.
In the old days of football, it was common for an offensive
team to run a running play at a defensive player that threw a cheap shot. The
focus of the play wasn’t to gain yards but to go after and hurt the defensive
player that threw the cheap shot.
In the modern era, I’m not sure how that type of tactic
would be received, if it was utilized.
The officials in Thursday’s game between the Roughriders and
Tiger-Cats called those penalties as they should. They could have elected to
eject Lawrence from the game, and that is the only other thing they could have
done.
Still, the CFL as a league and the players have to make it a
priority amongst themselves to get the cheap shots out of the game.
One way the CFL could do more is adopting a targeting
penalty that is used in the United States by the football teams in the National
Collegiate Athletic Association.
The penalty in the NCAA is 15-yards with an automatic
ejection from the game. If the penalty occurs in the second half of a contest,
the offending player is automatically suspended for the first half of the next
game.
With the CFL field being larger, the yardage for the penalty
could be 25-yards with those ejection stipulations.
Amateur football in Canada has a targeting rule that
contains a 25-yard penalty, but there are no automatic ejections. In U Sports,
the infraction is automatically reviewed for further discipline, and if the
targeting infraction is upheld, the offending player is suspended for his
squad’s upcoming game.
A number of pundits were calling for Lawrence to be
suspended for three to five games. The CFL and its players have to look at
these longer suspensions too.
There are likely some Roughriders fans looking for the old school enforcer response. Going back to last season, Saskatchewan has gone three straight games losing its starting quarterback in a game due to a head shot.
There are likely some Roughriders fans looking for the old school enforcer response. Going back to last season, Saskatchewan has gone three straight games losing its starting quarterback in a game due to a head shot.
In a 23-18 West semifinal playoff loss on Nov. 11, 2018 to
the Bombers, Roughriders starting quarterback Brandon Bridge was hit helmet to helmet
on the game’s second last play by Bombers defensive lineman Jackson Jeffcoat.
Bridge was knocked out of that contest.
During the Roughriders final regular season game in 2018 on
Oct. 27, Collaros was lost as starting quarterback due to a helmet-to-helmet
shot from British Columbia Lions defensive lineman Odell Willis in a 35-16
Saskatchewan victory.
The needless cheap shots need to go in the CFL. Unless is a
steady enforcement of ejections and suspensions for those fouls, they will
always remain a major problem in the game.
Is CFL football overpriced?
Fans at the 2013 West final in Calgary. |
Since at
least the start of the 2016 season, it seems a lot of fans show up at CFL game
dressed as empty seats. It seems like there are a lot of no shows in the
stadium even when a strong attendance figure is announced.
Announced attendance figures from Week 1 weren’t anything to
write home about. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced 22,287 spectators attended
their 23-17 victory over the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders at the 23,218
seat Tim Hortons Field.
On Friday, the Edmonton Eskimos attracted 25,263 announced spectators
to their 32-25 victory over the visiting Montreal Alouettes at the 55,819 seat
Commonwealth Stadium.
On Saturday, the Calgary Stampeders drew 26,301 announced
spectators to their 32-28 setback to the visiting Ottawa Redblacks at the
35,400 seat McMahon Stadium.
Also on Saturday, The British Columbia Lions drew an
announced crowd of 18,058 spectators to their 33-23 setback to the Winnipeg
Blue Bombers at the 54,500 seat B.C. Place stadium in Vancouver.
None of those figures are even close to what those clubs
could draw in their heydays.
Way back in 1972, the Tiger-Cats drew an average of 32,129
spectators to each of their regular season home games, and that mark still
stands as a team record.
The Eskimos set their team record for average regular season
attendance in 1982, when they attracted 57,899 spectators for each of their
regular season games.
The Stampeders team record for average regular season
attendance isn’t that old. Back in 2009, the Stampeders drew an average of
36,502 spectators in each of their regular season home games.
The Lions record for average regular season attendance came
back in 1986, when they attracted 46,526 spectators per game.
While numerous factors have to be considered for why fans
stay away, one wonders how big of a factor ticket prices play.
If you are looking to purchase single game tickets in the
lower part of each team’s stadium between the 20 yard lines, be prepared to
shell out. Those are the sections you can see the most on television and often
they seem empty.
Thanks to Ticketmaster information, here is what you can
expect to play for single game tickets in the following eight CFL markets, if
you sit in the lower sections between the 20 yard lines. All of these prices
come before fees and taxes.
- Calgary - $99 to $120.25.
- Edmonton - $66.75 to $99.75.
- Hamilton - $95 to $110.25.
- Ottawa - $55 to $131.
- Saskatchewan - $106 to $127.
- Toronto - $57.25 to $76.25.
- Vancouver - $90 to $94.
- Winnipeg - $99 to $155.
I couldn’t find single game ticket sales online for the
Montreal Alouettes. Using calculations from their regular season pricing plans
on their website, it will cost you $54.37 to $88.91 to sit between the 20 yard
lines in the lower sections at Alouettes home games before fees and taxes.
For the casual fans that attend games, it is safe to say
these prices are too high to make an impulse decision to go to a game. You could
sit in the end zones or the upper decks where the cheaper tickets are, but
casual fans are more tempted to pass on that.
If it becomes popular to head to a game to be seen, then
casual fans will pay higher ticket prices.
In cities like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, CFL clubs
have to compete against other options for the sports entertainment dollar like
Major League Soccer. Also, weather conditions will influence a ticket buyer,
and those prices will drive people away from bad weather games.
Even for ultra passionate fans, one wonders how close the
CFL is to pricing itself out of the market.
Clouston joins Blazers as head coach
Shaun Clouston, centre, is the new Kamloops Blazers head coach. |
On Monday,
the Kamloops Blazers announced Clouston would be the team’s new head coach and Darryl Sydor, who was a Blazers assistant coach last season, has moved up to
the role of associate coach. Sydor is one of the Blazers part owners.
Clouston
was the head coach and general manager of the Medicine Hat Tigers, but he and
the Tigers parted ways on May 30.
One day
later, the Tigers announced Willie Desjardins had returned to the team to
retake his former roles of head coach and general manager, which he left being
in 2010 moving up to the professional ranks.
Clouston has been with the Tigers for 16 seasons. He joined
the club as an assistant coach before the start of their WHL title winning campaign
in 2003-04.
The Viking, Alta., product was promoted to associate coach
before the start of the 2005-06 campaign and helped the Tigers win another WHL
in 2006-07.
He became the club’s head coach in 2010 and took on the role
of general manager in August of 2012.
Clouston
became the all-time leader in regular season head coaching wins with the
Tigers. The 51-year-old put together a stellar 375-241-46 regular season
coaching record with the team.
The Tigers
reached the WHL Eastern Conference championship series in 2011 and 2014 with
Clouston as head coach.
Adding in
his time as head coach of the Tri-City Americans from the 2002-03 season,
Clouston has 391 career regular season victories as a head coach.
The Tigers put up a solid 35-27-4-2 record last season under
Clouston despite suffering some key injuries down the stretch. They fell 4-2 in
a best-of-seven first round playoff series to the Edmonton Oil Kings.
The Blazers parted ways with former head coach Serge Lajoie
in April after one season. Under Lajoie, the Blazers posted a 28-32-6-2 record
in the regular season and won a standings tiebreaking game 5-1 over the Kelowna
Rockets to make the playoffs.
Kamloops fell in a best-of-seven first round playoff series
4-2 to the Victoria Royals.
Sydor played defence for the Blazers when they won the WHL
and Memorial Cup titles in the 1991-92 campaign. He also played his first games
in the NHL ranks that season with the Los Angeles Kings.
Sydor is best remember for his time in the NHL playing 1,291
career regular season games from 1991 to 2010 recording 98 goals and 409
assists with the Kings, Dallas Stars, Columbus Blue Jackets, Tampa Bay Lightning,
Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues.
He won the Stanley Cup with the Stars in 1999 and the
Lightning in 2004.
Under Clouston, you can be sure the Blazers players will be
hearing a lot about playing as a unit of five in all three zones on the ice. In
a team press release, Clouston said his family is planning to make Kamloops
their new home.
Raptors celebration looked crazy
Speechless. #WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/Ulb7MtDnK9— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) June 17, 2019
The NBA
champion Toronto Raptors held their victory parade in the Ontario provincial
capital on Monday, and the images show on television and social media looked
pretty crazy.
It is
estimated over two-million people turned out to see the parade in downtown
Toronto. The Raptors clinched their first NBA crown downing the two time
defending champion Golden State Warriors 114-110 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals
last Thursday in Oakland, Calif.
The images
of the celebration showed Toronto engulfed by a mass of humanity. The pictures
and video showed people from all sorts of cultures getting along together and
being happy.
Unfortunately,
the celebrations were marred by a shooting that left four people wounded and
three people were taken into custody.
Hopefully,
the good the Raptors did in bringing people together with their run will
outlast an idiotic incident.
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
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