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The Canadian Football League Database

Als Sign Long-term Lease

Published on September 28, 2009 7:13 PM

A 20-year lease certainly says something about the Alouette's confidence that Percival Molson Stadium will be a profitable home for them. Another 50,000 tickets sold next year when seating jumps to 25,000 should mean another $1.5 million towards their bottom line.

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Lansdowne Plan "Green"

Published on September 28, 2009 7:03 PM

Details on the park aspects of the Lansdowne plan, focusing on the debate over the multi-use hard-surfaced open park area that is to serve as park and parking lot. Frankly, I would eliminate these 380 overflow parking spots and create a real park. Multi-use in these extremes ends up being poorly suitable for either need and the 380 spots for "special" events is not worth it.

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Lansdowne Financing Explained

Published on September 27, 2009 11:10 AM

A nice, simple explanation of how the Lansdowne Park redevelopment proposal cost and revenue sharing works. Much easier to understand than the official partnership plan.

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CFL Shines on Sunday

Published on September 25, 2009 6:25 PM

Ian Busby apologizes for questioning the CFL for putting double header Sunday games against the first two weeks of the NFL season. The fact is the CFL held its own on Sunday. Canadians, the media included, have been raised with an inferiority complex so when the message that the CFL's problem is it can't compete against the NFL is repeated enough, they never question or look for the facts to prove it. Shown the truth, they are a little surprised, despite their favour for the Canadian contest. It is the this repeating of ingrained rhetoric that has no basis in fact from CFL fans and detractors alike that the CFL must overcome.

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Labour Day Story

Published on September 11, 2009 11:33 PM

Very entertaining story about the (clean) fun you can have on opposition soil on Labour Day. Sports are not meant to be taken so seriously that you don't have fun.

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CFL Alumni Launch National Organization

Published on September 11, 2009 11:22 PM

A national group to better support football and former players in Canada. Being involved with the CFL association may appeal to more players from recent years since more and more players do not play their whole career with one team.

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Labour Day Weekend Ratings Explosion

Published on September 9, 2009 7:16 PM

Between three-quarters of a million and one million viewers of each CFL game this weekend. This confirms what I've held for years — the old survey methods have been short changing the CFL (and all sports).

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Alouette Protest Overturned

Published on September 9, 2009 6:40 PM

Inevitable, considering:

  • how hard it is to prove intentional misapplication of a rule by official.
  • any decision to uphold the protest and declare the game a time or replay the final minute would be precedent setting.
  • the protest by-law is not meant to correct referee bungling of a game (instant replay was supposed to do that).

That said, hopefully the following lessons are learned:

  1. Using pagers to notify officials of play reviews was asking for this to happen. What about having the time-keeper running onto the field, a buzzer or some other notification through the sound system so there is no doubt from anyone in the stadium regarding the timing?
  2. Worrying about the proper clock setting before a play is not that important (certainly not important enough to create this kind of fiasco) when you can just add the time difference at the end of the next play.
  3. The injustice to Montreal was that they had to replay their third down play three times (once because of a late time-out, once on the touchdown play that was nullified and finally on the official third down play they were stopped on). However, early reports indicated there was a penalty against Montreal on the nullified play which would have required it to have been replayed anyway (with the appropriate penalty yardage). Interestingly, this was not mentioned in the protest decision statement, so apparently there was no penalty against Montreal on the play.

Great to see the CFL get this done and out of the way and not wait until next week.

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No Big Box Retail at Lansdowne

Published on September 8, 2009 4:50 PM

Not surprisingly, the mentioned possibilities of a 40,000 sq. ft food store, 15,000 sq. ft. book store, sporting goods store and cinema are labelled as big box by the opposition, even though the neighbourhood two-storey look is maintained. Where do these people shop? I'm sure it is not all in 5,000 sq. ft. independent shops. If they want to turn that tide, they need to time travel back 20 years, for that battle is lost.

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Moncton: Five Games Over Five Years

Published on September 3, 2009 7:44 PM

I read this as getting some coverage to put pressure on government's for funding. 20,000 seats, even at premium prices, won't replace the home gate teams would be leaving behind.

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Lions Police Themselves

Published on September 1, 2009 4:57 PM

Never heard about this until now — kudos to the Lions organization for condemning this. Leave it to commissioner Cohon to go beyond this incident with his statement "... we respect our opponents, we respect our game, our league, and ultimately, our fans."

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