Ladies and gentlemen, it's happened. Boatmen Blog has become the #1 result on Google for the search term "making ourselves look foolish" - beating out the 2003 Hamilton Ti-Cats, guys who wear O.J. Simpson throwback jerseys, and your relative who always gets too drunk at Thanksgiving. Big day around here. We're so proud.

Admittedly, it’s a little disappointing that three of the games this week only mean something to one team, but I’m sure we’ll get over it as soon as the games start.

Rusty's Picks:

Saskatchewan at Toronto

Tonight’s Argos game is apparently “World Record Night” and the team will be acknowledging various world record holders as well as trying to set some of its own. We can’t wait for the attempt on the “Most people dancing around an opponent's injured QB at halftime” record.

Pick: Toronto

Edmonton at Montreal

Well, this is awkward. The man that many Montrealers want to coach the Alouettes comes into town with a team that will not make the playoffs. So will he try to impress the Als by doing his best to win the game, or will he passively try and help them out by taking it easy?

Hmm… Steven Jyles is getting some time…. No Ed Hervey… Damn you, Macocia.

Pick: Montreal

Calgary at Winnipeg

Stamps Defensive Co-Ordinator Denny Creehan has claimed that the Lions were being paid by management if they managed to injure Stamps’ players. While we’re sure that this is entirely possible, it really didn’t help the Stamps cause to also blame the injuries on Snuffleupagus, the Boogeyman, and Horn Chen.

Pick: Winnipeg

Hamilton at BC

The season mercifully comes to a close for the Ti-Cats on Saturday. Hamilton’s suffered a number of disappointments this year, from the coaching changes to Jason Maas to Craig Yeast - but honestly, nothing has been more disappointing than the fact that Angelo Mosca never followed up on his promise to put an ad in Toronto newspapers encouraging fans to boycott the team due to Ricky Williams. There are still 2 home games left, Angelo. You’ve still got time.

Pick: BC

A-Rad's picks:

Saskatchewan at Toronto

I'm beginning to think Byron Parker could leap tall buildings in a single bound. I mean, the guy won the NCAA slam-dunk contest. He caught on in professional football after exactly 1 year playing the sport in college - which started with him as a walk-on. He's broken the CFL's record for interception return yards playing less than half the season. And most impressively, he somehow managed to navigate his way through what had to be the most baffling set of questions in the history of student newspapers.

Pick: Toronto

Edmonton at Montreal

According to Danny Maciocia, unlike those ingrates in Edmonton, "in Saskatchewan or Winnipeg, if you win the Grey Cup, you can become mayor, or premier." Is John Gregory aware of this? Because you'd have to figure the last guy to coach the 'Riders to a Grey Cup would want to know about this rare opportunity to serve as mayor of Regina - possibly the only job that could be even better than his current gig as head coach of the storied Arkansas Twisters.

Pick: Montreal

Calgary at Winnipeg

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod! Have you heard how totally awesome Tom Higgins is? (And he foxtrots to boot!)

Pick: Calgary

Hamilton at BC

I didn't think it was possible for me to like Pigskin Pete any more than I already did, but this interview with Perry Lefko might've achieved it - and not just because he addresses the "Foreskin Pete" taunts head-on. The best part, if I'm reading it correctly, is that he's retiring because all the cheerleading was tiring him out so much that he could have "maybe one beer after the game and it was time to go home." In other words, Pigskin Pete is quitting so he can get more drunk after games. Awesome. And for the record, there's no 72-year-old I'd rather get drunk with than Pigskin Pete, with the possible exception of Danny McManus.

Pick: BC

Bonus pick: 

All of the Argos have been injured in practice, leaving Pinball to play the 'Riders by himself. To give his team a fighting chance, the dastardly Danny Barrett forms an unholy alliance with Dick Pound to force Pinball to work his day job over at the parking lot while simultaneously playing the game. How does Pinball do?*

Rusty's Pick: Pinball 154, Roughriders 5  (Prior to the game, Pinball makes a short video to leave at the parking
lot, explaining the situation to customers and asking them to leave what they can.  Pinball ends up setting two world records tonight - the first for returning seven consecutive punts for touchdowns, the second for making $80,000 from a 10-spot parking lot in one night. People really love Pinball.)

A-Rad's pick: Pinball 763, Eskimos 0 (To move at lightning-speed between the parking lot and the Argodome, and just to spite Dick Pound, the normally clean Pinball ingests every known performance-enhancing drug before the game. As the score indicates, this gives him roughly an extra 600 points; it also helps at the parking lot, where he's able to lift illegally parked cars over his head and toss them across the street.)

* = Everything we need to know about football analysis, we learned from early '90s SNL sketches. 

 

At the risk of all sorts of innuendo we're not really aiming for, we know that Dick Pound can be a little hard to take. But you have to admire the guy's empire-building ever since the IOC rejected him for someone "less tempermental," as Wikipedia puts it - even if "empire" in this case really just refers to his ability to get 10 minutes of airtime on the Fan 590 every now and then.

See, back when he first took over the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick was expected to focus on performance-enhancing drug use among amateur athletes. But having evidently won that battle (really, when was the last time you saw a sprinter who looked like he was using?), he promptly moved on to steroids in professional sports. Then it was hockey players and their allegedly insatiable appetite for amphetamines. And now? Now, it's CFL players and their pot.

We have no idea how recreational drug use fits under Pound's umbrella. But as he casts his net wider and wider, we're starting to get a little nervous.

So before Dick calls a press conference to out us, it's time to come clean: Sometimes, before playing in our recreational flag football league, we've been known to consume all or part of a Red Bull. If it comes to it, we're prepared to roll over on the teammates who turned us onto it, and the convenience store owners who peddled it. Anything to help Dick in his bid to purge the sporting world of such filth.

While this year's Argos games have been extremely enjoyable, there's been something missing. That something? Well, as we've hinted at previously, it's obviously Scully - the loveable Argos mascot from the mid 90s. 

Scully provided everything one could want in a mascot: his own go-kart, the ability to squirt water out of his ears, a good passing arm for mascot football, and the wherewithal to avoid getting arrested. Sadly, Scully was released by the Argos after the 2002 season for reasons that the team has refused to disclose to this day.

With rumours swirling that Scully had suffered a nervous breakdown after being released by the club and had gone into seclusion, we decided it was up to us to seek him out and try to cheer him up.

This edition's stop: Midland, Ontario.  Population 16,700.

We were tipped off that Scully had moved to Midland in order to be close to the water, and because of the ample go-kart parking in the city's downtown.  Sadly, as the below picture with Lady Rusty (which beat out Rusty Lady as a nickname in a landslide 1-0 vote) shows, all we were able to find was this restaurant named in his honour, apparently by an alcoholic crab.

Come back Scully! 

(Incidentally, if anyone knows where the  Scully costume is, please let me know. Seriously. I need a Halloween costume.)

 

Naturally, we're in a pretty good mood to start the week. The Argos are in first, Damon is finally spreading the ball around a bit, we're only four days from the next home game, and the karma police have already started catching up with the Lions after Wally Buono went all Mike Martz ten days ago. It's just, we'd be even happier if not for some unpleasant information we received a few days ago.

See, while the Argos were heading west last week to take on the Eskimos, our man Frank D'Angelo was heading west for a far more sinister purpose - to torment the men and women who've been nobly representing our country overseas.

Now, we won't claim to speak for our troops. But all we can say is that, if we were returning home from doing battle with the Taliban, we'd want to be greeted by our family. Then we'd want to get home, reconnect with our friends, and enjoy the comforts of, um, not being in Afghanistan. What we would not want, under any circumstances, would be to spend two nights listening to Frank D'Angelo and the Steelback 2-4 "entertain" us with their "music" - a tactic that would probably violate the Geneva Conventions if it were employed by enemy forces.

Then again, we'd probably be too busy trying to figure out why our own country was trying to poison us with "ample quantities of Steelback beer" to even notice the music.  

A-Rad and I both went 2-1 last week, but that's not overly important.  What is important is that if I am ever declared legally insane, people will point to this post as the time when it first became visible.   

Rusty's Picks

Montreal at Saskatchewan

It’s finally happened. When we first saw Blitz (the Als inflatable mascot) a few years ago, our initial reaction was that it would one day hypnotize a large segment of the population. We had just always assumed that it would be for something evil, and would affect more than just his hometown football team. Never have trusted those inflatable mascots.

Anyway, his main routine involves walking upright for a few steps, then inexplicably bouncing on his head in place for awhile before continuing to walk upright as if nothing has happened. The Als, as we all know, won a bunch of games in a row, then bounced on their heads for six weeks, and have now started winning again as though nothing happened. It doesn't take a genius to see the connection, does it?

Let’s hope that Roy Shivers and his endless supply of toothpicks make a return trip to Regina this week to pop this inflatable bastard.

Pick: Montreal

Toronto at Edmonton

With John Avery and Ricky Williams in the backfield it’s safe to say that the Argos have the biggest two headed monster in football… with the obvious exception of Fred Smoot.

Pick: Toronto

Winnipeg at Hamilton

Wow, it’s only been a week, but it feels like forever since the Ti-Cats last played.

Anyway, Charles Roberts played a practical joke on the media and Bombers fans by announcing on ourbombers.com that he would be retiring at the end of the year. We want to give you our guarantee that when the time comes and Cheddar announces here that he’ll be hangin’ them up and going back to the refrigerator, that it will be 100% serious. The king of the curds would never play with our emotions like that.

Pick: Hamilton

BC at Calgary

Lost in all of the hullabaloo of the Stamps’ Nik Lewis and Jermaine Copeland’s rampant homophobia was the pandering of Geroy Simon to the sports fans of Toronto. That’s right. Geroy went on Off the Record wearing a Blue Jays hat. And it worked. We now love Geroy Simon. No, Nik and Jermaine, not in that way.

Pick: Calgary

A-Rad's picks

Montreal at Saskatchewan 

According to Jim Popp, who rather amusing appears to enjoy referring to himself in the third person ("Jim Popp is going to be Jim Popp"), the key for the Als from this point out is to "get stationary." You'd have to say, there's no team in the league better positioned to "get stationary" than the one with Anthony Calvillo as its quarterback.

Pick: Saskatchewan 

Toronto at Edmonton 

Among my favourite aspects of the Maciocia era, which I fear may be short-lived, are the weirdly self-aggrandizing quotes that pop up between games. This week, for instance, you've got Troy Davis winning player of the week, which would normally prompt a coach to say he's happy for his player and move on. But not Danny, whose response was that "These are like consolation prizes to someone like myself." So in one fell swoop, he manages to (a) imply that he won the award, not Davis, and (b) imply that for people who are not like him - presumably every other coach in the league - personal achievements are far more important than wins.

Maciocia!

Pick: Toronto 

Winnipeg at Hamilton

The bad news? I can't understand why any Hamiltonian in his right mind would want to go to this game. The good news? Plenty of tickets available for the Richie Williams fanclub to come in from, um, wherever exactly the Richie Williams fan club is based these days, and celebrate their hero's meteoric rise up the depth chart.

Pick: Winnipeg 

BC at Calgary 

According to the immortal Marty York, Lions offensive coordinator Jacques Chapdelaine will soon be leaving B.C. to take the Als' head coaching job (no word on whether he'll take his team of snotty rich kids with him). But if anyone reading Marty's reliably brilliant, entirely original and entirely credible weekly column didn't get to that item, it's quite understandable. That's what Marty gets for an opening paragraph that quotes an anonymous CFL GM telling him that "we want our old balls back" - a line I wouldn't have expected from anyone in the CFL this side of Rod Black.

Pick: BC 

Bonus pick: 

All of the Argos have somehow been injured in practice, leaving Pinball to play the Eskimos by himself. In an attempt to build their home field advantage, the dastardly Eskimos convert Commonwealth Stadium to its Heritage Classic form, forcing the game to be played on ice. How does Pinball do?*

Rusty's Pick: Pinball 108, Eskimos 7  (Ice?  Ice, doesn't faze Pinball.  Don't you remember the 96 Grey Cup? Pinball moves quickly enough to melt the ice by the end of the first quarter, and gives up a field goal and rouge while changing back into
cleats.  Unfortunately, his recent fashion contract forbids him from wearing a toque on top of his helmet.  Damn you, Harry Rosen.)

A-Rad's pick: Pinball 212, Eskimos 0 (Pinball on turf? Fast. Pinball on skates? So fast he's literally only a blur to the Eskimos - who can't even see him, let alone stop him. After the game, an awed Danny Maciocia is about to ask Pinball if he'd ever considered playing hockey...then remembers that's a topic he should probably stay away from.)

* = Everything we need to know about football analysis, we learned from early '90s SNL sketches. 

 

We like to think that one of Boatmenblog's many important functions is to educate and enlighten. And so, even with our tireless efforts to chronicle our game-watching experiences, run Frank D'Angelo out of town and shame the Argos into reviving the world's greatest dairy-related competition, we're always looking for new ways to keep you up-to-speed.

Our latest, which you may have noticed with that myserious "CFL News" link over on the left, plays it a little more by-the-book than usual around here. But if you're bored at work, it might be our best time-waster yet. Courtesy of Cowbell Jenny, we now present a daily (or almost daily) run through the CFL headlines.

No more having to comb through the Star's sports section to find the one Argos story nestled into the corner of the eighth page, and no more risk of accidentally encountering a Steve Simmons column while trolling around the Canoe site. We'll send you right to the stories themselves. Just, you know, remember to come back here when you're done. Because all the reporters in the world won't give you Shake Severs news like we'll give you Shake Severs news.

Some might suggest that, when facing a bit of criticism in one’s first season as a broadcaster, the best response is probably not to go ballistic. Those people would probably be right. But because of who - or, really, what - he's up against, we're fully behind Peewee Smith.

Peewee's new nemesis, the Globe's Bill Houston, belongs to a small and rather privileged group - consisting, at least in this market, of him and the Star's Chris Zelkovich. While employed by sports sections, these gentlemen don't generally go to live events, speak to athletes or dissect the games themselves. Instead, their entire jobs are to sit at home, watch sports and critique the coverage. (Hence Peewee's rather succinct point that "Bill never leaves his house.")

Now, we'll admit that's a pretty good gig - pretty much what millions of other sports fans do, except they get paid for it. And having spent a few nights watching games and taking notes ourselves, we can attest these things are rife with fun material. But here's the weird part: Both Houston and Zelkovich appear to think that what they're doing is actually serious work.

Actually, serious might be too mild a word. With near religious fervour, our couch-potatoes-in-chief jealously defend the honour of televised sports - a medium, we'll remind you, that includes Chris Berman. In  Zelkovich's case, this mostly manifests itself in a bizarre obsession with commentators' grammar, as though Chris Walby's syntax threatens not only the entire sport of football, but civilization itself. Houston, meanwhile, is obsessed with ethical dilemmas such as Peewee's, which rank somewhere just below the demise of the Toronto Phantoms on most sports fans' list of concerns.

We don't mean to burst anyone's bubble here. But these guys are quite possibly the least important people at their respective newspapers. None of the stuff they're covering actually matters, beyond the degree to which it entertains us. And frankly, Houston's feud with Peewee is the first time we can remember him entertaining us at all.

For some Argos fans, the third quarter of yesterday's game - dominated by the Eskimos and sponsored, coincidentally or not, by Steelback - is the one they'd like to forget. But not us. Quite the contrary, actually. Because it was at the very beginning of that quarter that we realized just how powerful we really are.

Okay, we don't know that we're responsible for the return of our beloved cheese race. But we're inclined to think that, having seen all the trouble we went to in order to recreate it, the Argos were shamed into reviving it. That, or they just felt sorry for us.

Honestly, we don't much care. Seeing Cheddar, Swiss and Pepper Jack renewing hostilities was good enough for us. That the race was capped off with a guy in a cheddar costume celebrating his victory...well, that was almost too much for us to handle.  

It’s the start of the Thanksgiving weekend. You’re driving up to your cottage or heading out on the town. We’re all sitting around a living room watching two western teams – neither of which he particularly like – doing battle. So naturally, we want to share the experience with you in all its glorious detail. After all, we haven’t done this in a while.

There’s only one problem – come the 10:00 pm start-time, TSN is still showing a Habs-Sabres game that’s run late. This is distressing, but we’ll work through it. We’re resilient that way.

10:01 pm Where’s Schultzie? Where’s Jock? Where’s anyone? Hockey season sucks.

10:06 The Habs are clinging to a 4-3 lead. We don’t want overtime. Go Habs.

10:09 Naturally, the Sabres tie it up in the final minute. Guy Carbonneau should be fired – already, Jack Todd is off somewhere writing that scalpers aren’t getting as much for Habs tickets as they used to. Honestly though, it’s a meaningless October hockey game. How is this more important than the CFL? Sure, we could understand not showing an Esks-Ti-cats game, but these are the top two teams in that “other” division.

10:11 With the Habs and Sabres still going, TSN’s football panel makes a cameo appearance. Matt Dunigan looks kind of annoyed that they’re still showing the hockey game. Begrudgingly, we gain more respect for Matt Dunigan.

10:15 It looks like Carbonneau is paying tribute to Don Matthews. So far as we can tell, he hasn’t moved in the last 15 minutes.

10:18 All three of us are currently debating whether or not people eat leeks in anything other than soups. We need football, stat.

10:24 Thomas Vanek wins it for Buffalo in the shootout, and simply skates towards the bench. Nik Lewis would have at least mocked Montreal by smoking some meat.

10:25 Onwards to BC Place. Apparently it’s 7-0 Lions. And we’ve never been happier to hear Glen Suitor.

10:33 Paul McCallum comes on to punt, and once again fails to get the single that Wally Buono so desperately wanted.

10:35 Is the CFL the only league that has both an official whisky and an official on-line gambling site? We love this league.

10:37 Jermaine Copeland celebrates a first down with a very heterosexual dance. The play is promptly called back.

10:39 Copeland gets a real catch this time, and remains defiantly heterosexual.

10:43 We’re treated to the first of what will no doubt be many anti-cholesterol commercials…but alarmingly, Wally Buono is nowhere to be found. As far as we can tell, he’s been replaced by a bull - the most embarrassing spokesman change since Mel Lastman’s own company replaced him with a monkey

10:47 Phew. Wally’s back, in anti-cholesterol form. When do we get a super-commercial with Wally fighting the bull?

10:49 Smilin’ Hank Burris throws his second screen pass interception in as many weeks, this one to former Renegade Korey Banks. Incidentally, Korey Banks is the only Korey (and/or Corey) we know of who is not a child actor, a strung-out former child actor or a 12-year-old-brat.

10:55 Touchdown Geroy Simon. Chris Cuthbert explains that the Stamps don’t like it when things are “put in their end zone.” Jermaine Copeland and Nik Lewis not approvingly.

11:01 We’re treated to a gratuitous shot of Dave Ritchie, once described by a friend of ours as looking like “an evil fish.”

11:02 The evil fish is shown making a drinkie-drinkie motion.

11:06 TSN gives us an extremely blurry shot of a queasy-looking Dave Dickenson, presumably so that we can see Dickenson the way that Dickenson sees us.

11:07 Buck Pierce is 14 of 15 for 181 yards and a TD in the first half. That might explain why Dickenson looks nauseous.

11:09 Scott Coe takes off his helmet to reveal a disappointingly normal haircut. We’re going to take credit for pressuring him into this.

11:14 As B.C. tries to put something in Calgary’s end zone again, Cuthbert tells us that the coverage was “a little too tight.” Copeland and Lewis are not going to like this one bit.

11:15 Touchdown Lions. Will we ever do one of these that’s not a blowout?

11:28 At halftime, Schultz explains that Copeland has “skills.” Hopefully those include numchuck skills. Because girls love guys with skills.

11:29 Dunigan appears to be wearing a tie that he lifted off a Howard Johnson concierge sometime in the ‘80s.

11:34 Is it just us, or has Jim Popp’s southern accent been getting thicker through this interview with Brian Williams? And doesn’t Popp kinda look less like a coach than the guy who’d be calling up sports radio to complain about the coach?

11:47 The third quarter well underway, Geroy Simon comes up with another excellent – and defiantly heterosexual – catch.

11:47 Buck Pierce is absorbed by a gentleman we like to call “The Pad.”

11:54 As Calgary concedes a safety, Cuthbert informs us that we won’t see the “dancing punter.” That’s a shame, because the dancing punter sounds magnificent.

12:00 a.m. Amazingly, Sandro DeAngelis appears to be falling asleep on the Stamps' bench. We’re not making this up. Ever watch your dog’s eyes get heavy, until he falls asleep on his nose? That’s pretty much was Sandro’s doing.

12:02 Sandro wakes up long enough to kick a short field goal, and we go to commercial.

12:03 How much is this movie with Robin Williams running for president going to suck? It’s nice that he’s out of rehab, but anyone who actually has to watch this thing is going straight into it. If there’s anyone on earth less funny than Robin Williams at this point, we can’t imagine who it is.

12:05 Cuthbert introduces a clip from last week of Buck Pierce landing on his funny bone. To which Suitor responds, naturally: “There’s nothing funny about it.” We take it back: Robin Williams is definitely funnier than Glen Suitor.

12:10 You know those movies where they have the team of snotty rich kids going up against the scrappy gang of misfits from across the lake? Lions' O.C. Jacques Chapdelaine totally looks like he should be coaching the snotty rich kids.

12:21 With the Lions up 26-6, Cuthbert says that Burris is trying to “change the course of the game.” Burris promptly throws directly into the hands of a Lions back.

12:22 As retribution for stuff being put in their end zone, the Stamps violate some guy named Colon.

12:28 As Joe Smith takes it home, Suitor invites us to “take a ride on the Joe Train.” We have no idea what that means, but we’re pretty sure Calgary won’t appreciate the Joe Train penetrating their end zone.

12:31 Up 33-6, and with Wally Buono channeling his inner Mike Martz, the Lions successfully do an onside kick. It’s called back, but it doesn’t matter. If this doesn’t come back to bite the Lions in the ass, we know nothing of karma.

12:35 Continuing a longstanding TSN tradition of assuming that Canadians are too dumb to understand sports other than hockey, Suitor inexplicably assesses that a good fullback is like a good fourth-line centre.

12:39 Burris is picked off for another touchdown, and in a show of solidarity the Lions all start doing the Geroy Simon superman pose. Copeland and Lewis promptly run off to record a health advisory on “catching the gay.”

12:40 The Lions go for two, officially becoming the most dislikeable team in the league. We can only assume Chapdelaine was somehow responsible for this.

12:42 Danny Mac is in, and he’ll make you jump, jump. Jumping himself, however, might be difficult, because we're not sure he could get off the ground at this point. Having apparently been enjoying the good life as a backup QB, his chinstrap is now too small for his face.

12:51 It’s decided: Our main goal for the Grey Cup is to hang with Danny Mac…mostly because he’ll make us look less drunk, sleepy and, um, portly.

12:54 Danny Mac leads the Stamps to their first touchdown of the game, scoring one for plus-sized gentlemen everywhere.

1:00 Why is Geroy Simon still in the game?

1:01 Oh, look…Geroy’s limping off the field. What was that about karma, again?

1:04 Danny Mac gets picked, prompting Wally to laugh at him. It’s nice to see that with The Don out of the CFL, Buono’s stepping into the all-purpose bogeyman role.

1:05 The final score? Lions 39, Stamps 13. The final answer? Leeks are pretty much useless outside soup.

A .500 week for me and a 3-1 week for A-Rad.  Pretty ho hum.  On to the Thanksgiving Weekend picks. 

Rusty's Picks:

Calgary at BC

While I was obviously very happy about the outcome of last week's Argos-Stamps game, I was a little disappointed by the lack of creativity shown by the Stamps receivers.  I can understand not wanting to break out a Toronto TD dance, but where were the creative first down celebrations? 

In any case, I know that you fine gentlemen on the Stamps are professionals, and I should probably stay out of this... but if you're looking for a "made in BC" celebration, I highly recommend going the T.J. Acree route and using the ball to taser your fellow receivers.  Because let's face it, the more obvious "made in BC" celebration would probably result in the entire team being suspended for the rest of the year.

Pick: Calgary

Saskatchewan at Montreal

With this game being on the road on Sunday, will Danny Barrett and family enjoy their delicious lame-duck Thanksgiving dinner on Monday?

Pick: Montreal (let the record show that I don't think I've correctly called an Als game in months)

Edmonton at Toronto

On the off chance that this game somehow manages to go to overtime, I suggest that the league do away with its regular format and have the two teams' offensive lineman compete in a turkey eating contest.  If nothing else, it'll give the Argos a reason to dress Cliff Washburn.

Pick: Toronto

A-Rad's picks: 

Calgary at BC 

Last week, Nik Lewis and Jermaine Copeland told Off the Record that Geroy Simon's touchdown celebration is "gay." (They then proceeded to debate whether or not their homeroom teacher is "hot" and the degree to which she totally wants to do them.) For this one, I'll defer to our friends over at the 13th Man. Because much as I could go on about the regressiveness of sports culture, it's more fun to point out that guys who did a five-man bobsled routine as one of their own touchdown routines really shouldn't be talking.

Pick: BC 

Saskatchewan at Montreal 

Let me get this straight. Danny Maciocia is the "dream candidate" to take over the Als? I mean, I understand that his strong connections to amateur football in Quebec means he'll be able to help convince more young black men to avoid hurting themselves breaking down barriers. But if Montreal call-in shows start being flooded by calls to lure Maciocia away from Edmonton, and all those calls are delivered in broken French with suspiciously Albertan accents, it might be the first indication that a few people out there are more looking to get him out of their nightmares.

Pick: Saskatchewan 

Edmonton at Toronto

Uh-oh...I'm pretty sure I've used up all my best Maciocia material by this point. So I'm just going to point out that, having done some sort of weird vaudeville act for the cameras yesterday, it really is about time Ricky and Avery got their own sitcom. "He's a world-travelling yoga enthusiast who doesn't wear shoes...and he just found out his new roommate is a trash-talking stand-up comedian!" Hijinks, naturally, will ensue. And so long as Avery uses his nasal white-guy voice to do his impression of Ricky at least once per episode, it really can't miss.

Pick: Toronto 

Bonus pick: 

All of the Argos have somehow been injured in practice, leaving Pinball to play the Eskimos by himself. Desperate to slow him down, the devious Eskies present Pinball with an entire Thanksgiving turkey before the game - which, unfailingly polite as always, he proceeds to consume in its entirety by himself. How does overstuffed Pinball do?*

Rusty's Pick: Pinball 168, Eskimos 7  (After determining that turkey was in fact a bird and not Danny Maccocia, Pinball gladly eats the gift from the Eskimos.  Sadly for Edmonton, the tryptophan has no effect on the man with the most energy in football.  The score would have been much worse if not for Pinball taking the second quarter off to consume a barrel
full of stuffing and a litre of mashed potatoes.)

A-Rad's pick: Pinball 246, Eskimos 0 (For a larger-than-life figure such as Pinball, an entire turkey doesn't make him full  - it only makes him hungrier. And so, naturally, he devours Edmonton. Note: That's not cranberry on his jersey - it's the blood of Eskimos. Wait, that doesn't sound right. The blood of Maciocia? Let's go with that.)

* = Everything we need to know about football analysis, we learned from early '90s SNL sketches.