If you look up "bush league" in the dictionary, we're pretty sure you'll find this photo next to it.

Come on, Judge Doom. You're up by 23 points with four minutes left in the game, against a team that's playing without its starting quarterback or its top two receivers, after you've been humiliated in your previous two games...and you run a fake field goal?

We'd say something about karma coming back to bite Tom Higgins in the ass, but we seem to recall making a similar prediction last year about Wally Buono and karma apparently slept through November. So let's be a little more practical about this.

Suppose it's the fourth quarter of next week's game against the Lions, and you're down by five points with a few minutes left. It's third and long, and you line up for a field goal that would cut the lead. Instead, you run a fake, hoping to take the lead. Except due to a magical invention called "game film," the Lions are expecting it. So instead of razzle dazzle, you just get splattered. But hey...at least you showed that non-divisional rival who's boss, at least when said non-divisional rival is playing with its third-string quarterback and no receivers.

The Calgary Stampeders had another good regular season in 2006, riding an offence that made excellent use of trick plays to a second-place finish in the West. Sadly, all that was quickly forgotten as the team was eliminated by some sort of rodent in round 1 of the playoffs.

After that embarrassment, the team fired the architect of the offence and spent the offseason stockpiling players to push the starters. Whether this will pay dividends remains to be seen. But you do have to question some of the moves.

Additions:

• Receivers Ryan Thelwell and the oft-injured Marc Boerigter. Good moves by themselves, but do you really think that Nik Lewis is the sort of guy that’ll handle himself well if some of the spotlight is taken off of him?

• Duncan O’Mahony, whose performance in the 2004 Grey Cup will always bring a smile to any Argos fan. Hopefully he'll make it to the Argo Dome this year.
  

• Real estate agent Akili Smith, who is presumably being brought in to help some of the more useful players find accommodations in Calgary’s tough housing market

So what do we expect from the Stamps this year besides nicer houses?
No word on if he used the "V" as a slingshotFrst of all, we expect Scott Coe to really let loose with his hairstyles this year. No more of the banker look for him. More importantly, on the touchdown celebration side, we expect:

• Jermaine Copeland to recreate BC Place deflating

• Pole vaulting over the goalposts

• Akili Smith to put up a “Sold” sign in the end zone after successfully executing a QB sneak

• Something involving the two-man luge - so long as it doesn't come off all "gay" like Geroy Simon’s Superman pose

In any event, we’re looking for another solid year from the Stamps this year. And quite frankly, that's probably for the better. The idea of these two getting pissed off scares the hell out of us.

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.

We know...Saturday night was ugly. Even if you didn't go 0-4 in your weekly picks (or as we call it, "taking a trip to Marty York country"), you're probably looking for a little solace after spending the last two nights having nightmares about the Argos throwing another useless pass to the flats and punting it away on third down. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to look on the bright side of life. Allow us to present a few of them, to help you get through the week:

• No matter how many stupid mistakes the Argos made on Saturday, and there were plenty, they had absolutely nothing on Wally Buono's failed attempt at cleverness yesterday afternoon. Fittingly, for a guy who routinely leaps on his high horse to accuse other teams of "embarrassing" the game, Buono wound up costing his Lions a win against the 'Riders by trying to make a mockery of the CFL's overtime format. For those who missed it, Buono's stroke of genius came with the game tied, the 'Riders having missed a field goal on their first OT possession and the Lions taking possession at the Saskatchewan 35. The normal strategy would've been to run a couple of conservative plays to move the ball forward a bit, then attempt a field goal for the win. Instead, hoping for what would've been the cheapest win of the season, Buono immediately sent out Paul McCallum to kick it through the end-zone for a game-winning rouge. Our first thought was how unsportsmanlike it was. Our second thought was that it was Paul McCallum, back at the scene of the crime, and that booting it through the end zone from back there (especially on a punt, rather than a field goal attempt) wasn't quite a sure thing. Sure enough, the 'Riders caught the punt and returned it out of the end zone, and minutes later Andy Fantuz sunk the Lions' battleship with a dramatic touchdown. Usually, Wally waits until November for this sort of meltdown, but we're sure the 'Riders aren't complaining.

• Courtesy of the latest "upset" against the Als, we now have a tie between the Als, the Argos and the Bombers for first in the East - also known as the hottest three-way action this side of whatever Spergon Wynn was involved in this weekend.

• Courtesy of the muted TV in the bar where we watched Saturday's game, we now know there's one way to spruce up even the most depressing loss - closed captioning. We'd normally suggest that whatever computerized system the CBC was using for this, it might do better just to hire someone who's actually watched a football game at some point in his life. But then, that would have deprived us of reading of the exploits of "Recchi Williams" and "Day Money Allen." It's like Chris Berman, if Chris Berman were a robot. Also, if Chris Berman were in any way even remotely entertaining.

• If nothing else, the Argos' road trip was worth it for giving Ricky (sorry, "Recchi") Williams a chance to strut around Calgary in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. If we'd known there was even a remote chance of hanging out with Ricky at this place, we'd have been on the first flight to Cowtown.

• After playing here roughly every three weeks for most of the season, the Argos will have home games four of the next five weekends to close our the regular season. In spite of the official letters of protest already submitted by our livers, we're deeply looking forward to this.

• If nothing else works, do what the rest of us do and gaze fondly at the photo of Boatmenblog's Rusty, surrounded by a pair of cheerleaders and the Argos' unfailingly stylish in-game host, being honoured as "season ticket holder of the game" with a satellite radio. It was nice of the Argos to simulate our fourth-quarter perspective by making the photo as blurry as possible.
  

It's Friday night. Your Boatmenblog crew has a fridge full of an inexplicably exotic variety of beers, Swiss Chalet on the way, and the TSN panel ready to do that thing it does. Let's do this.

7:03 pm Time for a Greg Marshall debate. Shockingly, Matt Dunigan is siding with a coach he thinks was fired prematurely. Chris Schultz, normally one of the best football analysts in the country, is explaining that Marshall should've gotten more time because he had the Ticats "close to the playoffs." It's true: Another coach might've gotten them into the negative integers needed to be more than 2 points back.

7:10 pm In a feature on recent #3 overall draft pick Andy Fantuz, Adam Rita is seen grilling him at the CFL combine...on what board games he likes to play. He appears to be serious, advancing our theory that Adam Rita is high 24 hours a day.

7:13 pm Aw, crap. TSN is going with the Black/Peterson combination, which is almost enough to make us long for the old ESPN Sunday night crew. Almost. 

7:19 pm Promo for the Brian Williams/Greg Marshall interview, except the clip is just Williams staring intensely into the camera. Marshall looks confused and slightly terrified.

7:23 pm Okay, this is actually a pretty good interview, and it's absolutely impossible to dislike Marshall right now. Total standup guy. But Williams must have it written into his contract that they have to show him looking pensive at least once every 30 seconds. And if they start filming him any closer, they'll be shooting up his nostrils.

7:38 pm Kickoff time, so we get the requisite Lancaster shots. Peterson invokes the standard "the coach didn't really want to come back and coach" line. Amazing how many selfless coaches there are out there.

7:52 pm Kwame Cavil makes his first catch of the season; commences approximately 17 minutes of celebrations. As they say, act like you've been there before. Or, in this case, caught it before.

7:55 pm Taking Rod Black's description of "sauna" conditions seriously, Lancaster's got the towel draped around his neck. Looks like he's headed for the spa, or at least the steam room at the Hamilton HoJo.

7:58 pm Jason Maas attempts the ugliest shovel pass we've ever seen. Anyone else wondering if Paopao might've been the problem?

7:59 pm Ticats get the first touchdown of the Lancaster era, and it sounds like 6 people are celebrating it in their basement. Would it kill TSN to mic the crowd? 

8:01 pm Wally Buono comes on to tell us he hates cholesterol; points menacingly at the camera. How long till our half chickens, Chalet sauce and fries get here?

8:04 pm Drunken Cowbell Jenny breezes into the room; commences another rant about those kids sitting in front of us at last weekend's game. Somewhere, one of our commenters shakes his head disapprovingly. 

8:16 pm We're treated to a guy waiting in a hot dog line wearing a golf shirt that's fluorescent pink up top, fluorescent  yellow in the middle, and fluorescent green at the bottom. Nice of TSN to show us the best-dressed man in Hamilton.

8:22 pm The newly disciplined Ticats take a time-count violation inside the 10-yard line. 

8:24 pm Lancaster talks to Maas on the sideline. How many times do you think he's called him Danny so far? 

8:25 pm With a 3rd down on the Calgary 4, Hamilton attempts a toss that somehow winds up on the turf. Turnover. Paopao!

8:37 pm Black describes Sandro DeAngelis as the hottest player in the CFL. Sandro promptly misses a field goal. Don't worry...Rod still loves Sandro.

8:38 pm Swiss Chalet finally arrives. In deference to Wally Buono, we stop taking notes to start boosting our cholesterol. Rusty chugs Chalet sauce.  

8:50 pm Apparently there's still a game going on. Ticats D steps up for a goal-line stand to end the half; Ticats go to the dressing room with the lead.

9:00 pm Why is Williams berating Tom Sizemore about firing Greg Marshall? Oh, wait...that's Ticats president Rob Katz. 

9:02 pm Williams tells Katz they're running out of time; halftime marching band launches into Europe's Final Countdown in the background. Seriously. 

9:05 pm Another Ticats drive falls apart, this time ending in a Maas fumble. 

9:18 pm Lancaster looks on intently at a Ticats 3rd down gamble. Or he's looking for a cabana girl with a cold drink. We can't really tell. 

9:25 pm The Ticats flub a punt. How are they still in this? 

9:32 pm Lancaster freaks out over a flag. Or maybe just a lack of ice and/or salt for his margarita. 

9:33 pm The score remains 7-4. Rod Black earnestly proclaims it "a crazy night."

9:37 pm The Ticats' Tad Kornegay - who sounds like a character played by Ted McGinley - celebrates his fumble recovery with a shoutout to Trenton, New Jersey.

9:39 pm Do child labour laws not apply in the CFL? We don't care what his bio says...Greg Randall is not 28. 

9:42 pm Final Countdown is playing again. Damn...Hamiltonians LOVE them their Europe. 

9:48 pm Lining up for a field goal from the 1-yard-line, Hamilton keeps deliberately taking penalties; Calgary keeps declining them. This is the worst television we've seen since that guy on Angola got hit in the crotch with the soccer ball during the World Cup and lay there for five minutes with his hands down his shorts.

9:50 pm Lancaster is starting to look hungry. That 4:30 early-bird special must be starting to wear off.

9:59 pm Hey, wasn't John Lu supposed to be a sideline reporter for this game? How many injuries will it take to wrest him away from the hot Hamilton nightlife? 

10:12 pm Speaking of missing persons, whatever happened to Lancaster? It's not like TSN to go five minutes without giving us a dose of our Li'l General. 

10:14 pm Terry Vaughn just tied Darren Flutie's CFL receptions record. If there's anything about Terry Vaughn that's worth making fun of, we haven't figured it out yet. 

10:17 pm Corey Holmes takes it to the endzone; commences dance around startled linemen. Petersen suggests the linemen would be happier square dancing. Nice work playing the race card.

10:18 pm Yikes. The Stamps' Cam Yeow is on a stretcher, being loaded into an ambulance. Nobody bothers explaining what's wrong with him. Seriously, what is John Lu being paid for?

10:29 pm Sandro DeAngelis is out to try a game-tying field goal. Rod Black is going nuts. It's good! Lucky we're going to commercial...we're pretty sure Rod just had a Mike Cooper moment.   

10:31 pm Hot damn! It's a John Lu sighting! 

10:35 pm Vaughn breaks the receptions record. Hamiltonians seem to be oblivious. 

10:40 pm The camera pans to DeAngelis on the bench, literally pinching himself. Maybe someone told him about the whole Rod Black thing.

10:42 pm The Stamps shank a punt, surrendering prime field position with 30 seconds left. Isn't it the Ticats who are supposed to be doing this stuff?

10:44 pm Replacement Ticats kicker Mark Myers hits a 45-yard field goal. Jamie Boreham is officially cut. Oh, and the Ticats won. Time to bust out that eclair.

10:45 pm Lancaster grins. "You know who else is smiling right now?" Rod Black exclaims. "Greg Marshall!" Um, okay. But no smiles from us. Ticats still suck.