Hamilton’s winning in Toronto… Edmonton is winning at all… MartyYork successfully called the Cito coming back thing… Start stocking up on canned food.

Calgary At Montreal

We here at boatmenblog are obviously known for two things, one of which is asking all of the tough questions. With that in mind… how the hell did Nik Lewis manage to participate in that bobsled touchdown celebration a few years back when he clearly doesn’t have a neck?

Pick: Montreal

Toronto at Edmonton

I’m a little surprised that we haven’t seen a number of articles on Prefontaine and Younger this week. Maybe they’re being saved for Thursday. It would admittedly be nice to have Younger back this week, if only because Wayne Shaw is not a suitable replacement for Willie Middlebrooks.

Also, good job by Adriano Belli getting kicked out of the game in the third quarter last week. The season hasn’t officially started until he’s done something stupid. Game on.

Pick: Toronto

BC at Winnipeg

No snaky comments here. Bob Ackles had a tremendous influence on the CFL and we are honoured to have been even tangentially associated with him through the football series run by the Post. Hopefully, he’ll be smiling and watching this one.

Pick: BC

Saskatchewan at Hamilton

I was admittedly a little stunned to see TJ Acree traded to the Riders but at least this means that I can continue to make vague references to the time he was shocked outside of a sushi restaurant in Vancouver. In any case, with the injury to DJ Flick this makes a lot of sense from the Riders perspective. What doesn’t make a lot of sense is that when I heard that Darien Durant was starting at QB for the Riders this week I was excited because it meant that we could run this photo of him getting Romero Miller’s leftovers again.

Pick: Hamilton (I can’t believe it either)

Bonus Pick:

All of the Argos have been injured in practice, leaving Pinball to play the Eskimos himself. But first decides to make a quick stop by the Calgary Stampede. How does Pinball do?

Boatmenblog Pick: Pinball starts the day by heroically downing 132 pancakes and then cooking up enough to feed the Greater Calgary Area for 6 months. During the rodeo, he proceeds to ride a champion bull for over 20 minutes and then for show bucks the bull off of him. Oh, and he beats the Eskimos 418-13.

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

One of the things we love about David Cynamon - and there are many - is that, in keeping with the random burst of Andrew WK that piped in through the loud speakers last night, he's a man who appreciates the value of partying hard. And so we especially enjoyed his summation of the Argos' debacle of a home opener:

"It's a major disappointment. I mean, it's like hosting a party at your home, you've got everything lined up, everybody is showing up, weather is great and you forgot to bring the alcohol, and everybody goes home disappointed."

We've been to a party at David Cynamon's home, so we can attest that this is a man who would never, ever forget to provide alcohol. (Nor would he forget to scantily clad women lounging on ice sculptures, but we digress). That being said, what we witnessed last night was worse than going to a party without alchohol. It was like going to a party where the only alcohol turns out to be Steelback.

In other words, we didn't just go home disappointed. We went home confused, angry and slightly nauseous, knowing that we'd feel worse before we felt better. Even the absence of a certain Steelback founder himself wasn't enough to make up for that.

This probably deserves its own post sometime in the coming weeks, but are we really going to be getting three games a week from the Cuthburt/Suitor combo? Understand that we’re perfectly fine with Cuthburt, even if he did mis-identify numerous players last week, but isn’t this going to get very old rather quickly? Is there nobody else in the TSN cabal that is capable of calling games?

And shouldn’t they have some different guys on hand so that they can show up a few days before the game and talk to some of the players?

Hamilton at Toronto

Not a good first week for the Ti-Cats as the defence got carved up like a whole chicken placed in front of Rob Murphy. The main change for the Cats this week is that the coveted “yellow shoes” have been passed on to Tre Smith after the departure of Willie Pounder. This of course leads to the obvious question: who the hell is Willie Pounder?

Pick: Toronto

Calgary at Edmonton

Wow, that was a lot of bluster from Fred Perry last week without any payoff at all. Good to see that he’s on the same page as his coach. Perhaps the Stamps relatively inexperienced line will prove more palatable.

Pick: Calgary

Winnipeg at Montreal

Presumably this game will be a better indicator, but that was a heck of a start by the Als. The benefit of course of having Trestman succeed this year would be that it would mean that more owners might become more creative in their hiring, something that has been lacking since Greg Marshall was unfairly blamed for the disastrous Ti-Cat team of two years ago.

Pick: Montreal

Saskatchewan at BC

Odds that Wally gives us a nonsensical quote about the QB change: Off the board, it’s already happened (“Was I mistake on my part? I’m not saying it was a mistake or not. I’m not making two mistakes. If I don’t correct it, then I’m afraid to say maybe I didn’t make a good choice.”

Odds that Roy Shivers attacks Eric “The Hedgehog” Tillman with a toothpick: 5 to 1

Pick: BC

Bonus Pick:

All of the Argos have been injured in practice, leaving Pinball to play the Ti-Cats himself. Unfortunately, Pinball was taking part in a pre-game promotion that had him sitting in a go-kart, which the dastardly Ti-Cats have superglued him into. How does go-kart bound Pinball do?*

Boatmenblog Pick: Pinball 274 Ti-Cats 5. This proves to be Pinball’s biggest disadvantage yet. The go-kart severely hampers his ability to tackle and actually makes him slower. On the other hand, he’s playing the Ti-Cats.

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

Much unrest in Steeltown this season over a 40% increase in ticket prices, but it seems a little misplaced. Surely, 40% more money means 40% more entertainment - and 40% more wins!

In fact, we're going to go out on a limb and suggest that Ticat fans may actually get more than their money's worth. Suppose, for a moment, that they win 5 games this year. We know, we know - it sounds crazy. But hey - Casey Printers could find his form. And if it happens, they won't just be 40% better than last year's 3-win total - they'll be 66.7% better!

If that sounds too good to be true, consider last night's home opener.* At last year's opener, the Ticats disappointed their fans by scoring only five points against the Argos. This year, they literally doubled that total with a whopping 10 points against the Als! True, their opponents actually scored slightly more points this year (33) than last year (30). But not 40% more. Only the Ticats did that!

This is exciting news, because the past couple of Labour Days we've started to feel a little guilty watching the Argos so decimate the Ticats that Hamiltonians don't even have the energy to throw bottles at our heads or attempt to bite our ears. This way, the Argos should still be able to win by a convincing score - just not so convincing that it's over by the middle of the first quarter. 

So relax, Bob O'Billovich. Unpack those pink suitcases and stay a while. Casey Printers may not be in MVP form, but he's at least 40% better than Timmy Chang. And if he's healthier than usual, Jesse Lumsden might even appear in 40% of the games. Provided that the in-game crew pipes in MC Hammer proclaiming it "Hammer Time" at least 40% more often each game, you really can't go wrong.

*This is the advantage of procrastinating so long that your "previews" appear the day after the season starts.

Pop quiz: Anyone remember who was named Player of the Game in last year’s Grey Cup?

That would be one James Johnson, who intercepted three tosses from Ryan Dinwiddie. I raise this not to be labelled a Dinwiddie hater - who among us has not melted under the gaze of his icy blue eyes? - but merely to point out that the Bombers were basically one freak Kevin Glenn injury away from winning the Grey Cup.

This year, the Bombers have Glenn back with pretty much his entire offensive supporting cast Charles Roberts, Milt Stegall, Terrence Edwards, et al - intact. Meanwhile, players seem to be actually taking less money than they’re worth to stay in Winnipeg, with Tom Canada signing for less money than he was offered by Montreal and Derick Armstrong signing an extension that helped Winnipeg get under the cap.

Understand, this is no small sacrifice in the CFL; there’s a good chance that instead of heading to the Caribbean for their holidays, these guys will have to go to Falcon Beach.

One might assume they’re doing this because they think the Bombers have the best chance of winning the Grey Cup. Doug Brown, on the other hand, offers a somewhat more melancholy explanation. “You don't necessarily have to learn that hard lesson that we've all learned with our ex-girlfriends,” the defensive end says, possibly while sitting alone in his room getting misty to the latest James Blunt record. “Once you let them go, you realize how much you miss them sometimes." (Can someone please give Doug Brown a hug or set him up with a profile on eharmony?)

Ah, but in this feel-good atmosphere, whither Little Hawk? Alas, after 17 seasons with the team, Troy Westwood finds himself cast to the curb for a younger, hotter model.

Yes, the Bombers will likely dominate early and challenge the Argos for Eastern Conference supremacy. But in the end, I suspect, Doug Brown will prove prophetic.

No, Westwood is not going to get a hair cut (perish the thought! - ed), lose some weight and look better than he ever looked in the blue and gold. But don’t be surprised if the new kicker-de-jour messes up in a big situation and leaves Bomber fans wondering if they didn’t have it pretty good with ol’ Troy after all.

-Shoomy

but thanks to the National Post for running our ramblings on the CFL

http://www.canada.com/topics/sports/baseball/story.html?id=c03907f4-8b9c-4614-9567-6b604c03fd12

We are not liveblogging tonight's exhibition game, but damn!  Seventy-six yard touchdown pass, Bishop to Bethel is certainly a good way to kick things off. 

Strike up the Argonotes!  Start planning the parade...  It's a guaranteed Grey Cup!

Consider this a pre-emptive strike.

While at the Jays game Friday night (at this point it would probably make more sense if I started renting a room at the RC hotel) the woman sitting behind me was giggling with delight after every Jays strike out. Now if she was just delirious about the Jays recent lights out starting pitching or was enjoying the mutton chopped stylings of Brian Tallet that’d be one thing. But no, like thousands of other occasional Toronto baseball fans she was giddy over the prospect of possibly getting a free crappy $2 pepperoni slice from Pizza Pizza.

“Wouldn’t it be great if they did this at every game in Toronto?”

Hell no! We’ve already seen this damn promotion ruin Jays and Raptors games and there is no way as fans that we should allow it to spread to other teams. There is little that is more embarrassing as a sports fan in this city than to have a top of the ninth situation in a close game and have the crowd chanting “Pizza! Pizza!”. I get it from Pizza Pizza’s perspective, it’s a great marketing trick, but why people are so enthralled by this (or the chance to win a shirt that says FedEx on it) is beyond me. If the Carolina Hurricanes had a promotion where everyone got some free ribs if the team scored 4 goals and the whole crowd starting chanting “B! B! Q!” in the third period, we’d all think they were brain dead hicks, so why do we stand for this in our own city? Incidentally, the Hurricanes example would actually be somewhat defensible on account of BBQ being awesome.

So, how does this relate to the Argos? Well, so far Pizza Pizza’s advertising at the games has been restricted to bringing out that guy who won the world pizza dough competition and having Damon Allen make incomprehensible jokes about Jude St. John being Italian. But we all know that it won’t stop there.

As we speak there is someone sitting in a big leather chair at Pizza Pizza headquarters plotting a way to get pizza chants going at all public places. Weddings, funerals, beer fests and yes, Argo games. It’s not a stretch to picture fair weather fans making too much noise when the Argos have the ball because one more first down will get them a soggy piece of cardboard with cheese on it. Or groaning after a third down stop because it didn’t get them the last sack needed for an angioplasty inducing slice, and the last thing this city needs is to have the rest of the country think that he have the dumbest fans in the league save for the gaggle of bandwagoners that show up for the Als game at the Big O every year.

So is there any sponsorship that Pizza Pizza can take on that would make us happier than seeing Timmy Chang coming into a game? Easy. Cheese Race! Cheese Race!