Here is the Canadian Football season in a nutshell so far:

Our selections in the AFL have been spot on all year; we've gotten 84 out of 116 correct this season, (75%) and sit in the top third of 1% in every grouping we're part of in the official AFL "tipping" contest (that's what they call predicting down under). So we know how to pick games. 

In the CFL, we're 3 out of 8 so far. (Which is better than the odds makers at BoDog, the official CFL gambling site, who have only gotten two games right so far.) Despite what actually passes as worse than "flip a coin" prognostication, we're in the top half of the pool already, and moving up. Go figure.

Last weekend, in Round 2, the Eastern Division somehow went 4-0 against the "vastly superior" West, with Hamilton annihilating 1-0 Winnipeg 52-26 - and that was the LEAST of the four results! - "quarterbackless Montreal crushing defending champion Calgary 29-11 behind first-time starter Raheem Cato (of Marshall U fame); Ottawa matched its 2014 win total sixteen games early by upending the British Columbia Lions 27-16; and in the game of the young season so far, two incredibly proficient teams went toe-to-toe, slugging it out as long as theoretically possible - more on that in a moment - before Toronto upset Saskatchewan in the Mosaic in Regina 42-40 in double overtime. Two great writers to follow on Canadian football are Don Landry and Pat Steinberg on cfl.ca; here are their wrap-ups.

Backup QB Trevor Harris drove the Argonauts down for the tying score late in the fourth, and the teams traded touchdowns (and missed mandatory 2-pt conversions) in the first overtime together. In the CFL, OTs are run in the same basic Kansas City format the NCAA uses, except each possession starts from the 35 (the extra ten yards account for the goal posts being ten yards closer, on the goal line itself). They only allow two overtimes at most in a regular season game, and 2-pt conversions are required on all TDs. The Roughriders made their second TD to come within two of Toronto in the second OT, and then on the by-definition last play of the game, the Argos stopped Saskatchewan from converting to win the game by two. 

So right now, Toronto and Ottawa are 2-0 in the East (Toronto has a 17 point higher rating at the moment), with Hamilton and Montreal a game back at 1-1. Calgary still leads the West, tied with Winnipeg at 1-1; BC and Edmonton each sit at 0-1, and the Roughriders have looked good two straight weeks and are 0-2 to show for it. 

Next week, we see these likelihoods:
Edmonton over Ottawa 19-13 at home...Winnipeg at home over Montreal 28-23...Saskatchewan over BC 30-24 in Vancouver...Calgary edging Toronto 24-23 at home. The Hamilton Ti-Cats have the week off.

As the pre-season ends up north...

...and the end of a few CFL careers come with the final cutdown tomorrow, we take a look at the final exhibition games and the starting Following Football ratings for the CFL:

- Troubled Toronto handles rival Montreal 30-10, to my surprise (the Argonauts don't play in their Rogers Centre home until August, including having to play a "home game" in Ft. McMurray next weekend. Their ownership is changing and the current owner's not likely to spend another dime on the Argos this year...)
-Hamilton over Winnipeg 26-15, posting a 2-0 preseason after two easy games against the two weakest teams after playing Grey Cup last November.
-Edmonton traveled to Vancouver and beat the BC Lions 18-13. They also went 2-0, but defeated two good teams in Saskatchewan and the Lions.
-Speaking of Saskatchewan, their broadcast went live on line tonight, so we watched them compete marvelously against the defenders from Calgary, who showed their class by coming back from being down all game to score the last two TDs and win 37-29.

Calgary certainly deserves the highest rating going into the 2015 season, which starts on Thursday night. Here's our picks for week one, with the FF Elo-style ratings in parentheses...

Thursday, Montreal (29.6) at Ottawa (10.1) - M should win 33-7.
Friday, Hamilton (29.9) at Calgary (48.9) - C should win, 34-21.
Saturday, Edmonton (38.1) "at" Toronto (29.9) - E in a close one, 31-28.
Saturday, Winnipeg (20.1) at Saskatchewan (30.0) - we see S big, 35-17.
(And in an odd-team league, it's the BC Lions (32.9) with the bye to start the season.)

If you're interested in joining me in the CFL Pick'em contest, go to cfl.ca and register before Thursday night! It's free, it's quick (only four games to pick each week), and it'll give you some insight into the Canadian game! Twelve men flying in all directions, three downs, big field - it's a blast!

Canada starts its pre-season! And, about the NBA Finals...

With a pair of games Monday and Tuesday evenings, the CFL has started its pre-season in preparation for opening night on June 25th! The Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the second-year Ottawa Redblacks (I refuse to write REDBLACKS every time this year - I felt like I was yelling at my readers!) 37-10 on Monday, and last night the Winnipeg Blue Bombers upset the Toronto Argonauts by a touchdown, 34-27, on the strength of too many Argo turnovers. I've noticed that the CFL, having only two pre-season games, uses its starters more than its neighbors to the south - listening to the first half last night, there was a real sense of playing a real game of football, not a uniformed scrimmage, although LOTS of men got into the action. 

Of course, I only listened to the first half of the Canadian game because there was a MUCH more important event going on just south of Toronto a few hundred miles! I know the ball's the wrong shape (and the court's wooden and much more indoors), but you've GOT to admire the work of LeBron James and what's left of the Cleveland Cavaliers, already distant underdogs to the Golden State Warriors before superstar Kyrie Irving went down...remembering the loss of Kevin Love in the first round of the playoffs...and of Anderson Varejao in December for the season...and then to have Iman Shumpert re-injure his shoulder in the first quarter last night and have it mostly useless the rest of the night...and yet somehow, they're leading the 67-win Warriors two games to one after winning last night! Normally, I'd be a Warrior fan - I grew up in NorCal, and remember the last Warriors title, forty years ago; they play a beautiful brand of basketball, and I have as much admiration for them as any team I've watched play. But if the Cavaliers somehow won this series? No team with at least 65 wins has ever failed to win the Finals, let alone to a team fourteen games below them, let alone to a team missing its 2nd and 3rd best players, let alone to a team whose now-second best player is an undrafted Aussie from St. Mary's University who looks like an accountant and has to show his ID to get into the locker rooms!!

Essentially, LeBron James is willing a team of castoffs and second stringers to a title riding his coattails. On Jimmy Kimmel's show last night, he referred to the series as being "tied up 1-1 between Golden State and LeBron James", and he's not that far from the truth. Matthew Dellavadova has been literally unbelievable, JR Smith and James Jones have played over their heads, Timofey Mosgov and Tristan Thompson have had their coming-out parties in this playoff series...but it's all because of The Man. It's fascinating to hear the distinction the announcers give Curry and James: Curry is "the MVP", but LeBron is "the best player in the world".

Yep. That's about the size of it. And if he wins this series more or less by himself, to bring that mystical title to starving Cleveland? 

There would be no words for it. Unprecedented. And he's halfway there.

Along the lines of the FF rating system for the AFL...

...comes the Following Football CFL rating system! (Yeah...we're bored. What's your point?)

This was formulated using the numbers from the last three CFL seasons (except for Ottawa, who was an expansion franchise in 2014), with each season being worth half of the one that followed it. The ratings have been normalized with 30 as a median, so that the sum of all the ratings should always equal 30*9 teams=270:

Calgary Stampeders           48.5
Edmonton Eskimos            37.7
British Columbia Lions     32.5
Saskatchewan R.Riders    29.6
Hamilton Tiger-Cats          29.5
Toronto Argonauts             29.5
Montreal Alouettes             29.2
Winnipeg Blue Bombers   20.2
Ottawa REDBLACKS           13.3

A few interesting notes about this rating system as it's played out...
--- Calgary seems really high, but that's what you get when you're as dominant as they were last year, plus very solid seasons the two previous years. It remains to be seen if that rating accurately predicts scores, however - my guess is that it's too high for that purpose.
---Given an average score of 30, it's funny to see only three of nine teams above thirty. Of course, having four teams in the 29s makes up for it! That's about how close those teams have been the last couple of years!
---What will home field advantage be worth? Traditionally, three points, but whether that works with this rating system is still anyone's guess. 
---Like Calgary, Ottawa is so far off the norm that it's anyone's guess whether that number will be accurate or useful in predicting outcomes and scores for the REDBLACKS, the only fully-capitalized team in professional sports! The great thing about these rating systems, though, is that they self-normalize over time - if they're not accurate yet, they will be soon!

So, we'll have to wait and see how this plays out over the course of the 22-game CFL season. We'll track the games here, right alongside the AFL in the early season and the NFL in the fall and winter. As need be, we may adjust the numbers slightly in the pre-season as we "tweak" the set-up for its initial use.

Play ball!

CFL update for "Week 9" (which is really 19 in Canadian...)

As expected, Montreal won at home against Toronto, 17-14, holding its home court edge as was the case the previous week in Toronto. This clinches a playoff spot for the Alouettes, and gives Hamilton the final spot IF they also hold home field next week in the final leg of the virtual "round-robin" Eastern conference tournament.

Meanwhile, the one upset was Winnipeg's final game of the season (they have a bye next week) being a defeat of first place Calgary - who possibly held back on their top players' exposure in preparation for the playoffs? Hamilton beat Ottawa and the Eskimos annihilated the BC Lions, 37-3. 

And now...let's dive into the Canadian Football League!

We're in week 15 of the CFL season, and it's all Calgary Stampeders, who at 12-2 lead the entire league by three full games, clinching their playoff spot seemingly years in advance. 

With their 31-24 victory over the Saskatchewan Roughriders Friday night, coupled with Edmonton's one point loss to Toronto Saturday, Calgary stretched their lead over those two clubs to three games with four to play before playoffs start in November.

Much like last year, the WIDE gap between the East and West divisions is what stands out when you  glance at the standings - before Hamilton's victory on Saturday and Winnipeg's surprise loss to bottom feeder Ottowa Redblacks 42-20, all five teams in the West had better records than all four teams in the East! Hamilton leads the East at 6-7 (you read that right), while Winnipeg fell to 6-8 with their loss, last in the West and a game behind the BC Lions.

Last year's champions, the Toronto Argonauts, host their division rivals, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, for first place in the division Friday night with four weeks to go in the season! Saturday, Ottawa travels to Vancouver to play the BC Lions, and on Monday the 13th, there's a pair of games: Saskatchewan at Montreal, and then Winnipeg at Edmonton.