CFL
CFL.ca Staff
TORONTO — After a season of Cliff Notes for each exciting weekend of CFL action, we’ve finally reached an end to it all. The obvious thing we learned from the past week is that the Calgary Stampeders are the Grey Cup Champion of 2014, which is exactly what the entire season is all about. But other than that, there were many other things we learned from Sunday’s stellar matchup between the Ticats and Stampeders.
This week we talk about what we learned from the Grey Cup matchup between the Stamps and Ticats.
1. The Calgary Stampeders are the best team in the CFL.
Everyone likes the story about the underdog coming through, but it just wasn’t in the cards this year. Nope, this year the best team in the CFL won, and that is the Calgary Stampeders — winners of 15 games in the regular season and two more in the playoffs, including the 102nd Grey Cup Championship.
The Stamps have the best overall record in the league over the past five years, and they’ve managed to cap it all off by finally winning their first Grey Cup Championship since 2008. It was long overdue, and something that’s been missing overall in this league — the top regular season team winning the Grey Cup.
Before this year, the last four division winners were eliminated in their Division Final. The 2013 Grey Cup was played between two second-place teams, as was the 2012 Grey Cup. You have to go back to 2011 to find the last time a division winner won the Grey Cup, when the BC Lions won it on their home turf.
This year, not the case as the best team from start to finish, the Calgary Stampeders, won the Grey Cup. They are the number one team in the CFL right now.
2. Parity rules this league.
With Calgary’s win on Sunday, it marked five different teams winning the Grey Cup in the past five years. You can’t look at that statistic and say there isn’t parity in the CFL. Every year, all six playoff teams are in the running for the trophy, and while it’s less common for a third-place team to go to the Grey Cup, you can’t say it hasn’t happened.
The parity is even stronger now, though, when you look at the Argos missing the playoffs and the Riders and Lions each going down in the first round — all teams that are within three years of being dominant and winning a championship, and all teams that are a pickup or two away from contending yet again.
When you look down the list of CFL teams, you can provide reasons why each and every one could be a contendor in 2015. That’s uncommon even for a nine-time league, and it’s possible to argue that there’s never been more parity in the CFL than there is right now. Expect the Riders, Lions, and Argos to enjoy bounce-back years in 2015, and the Bombers and REDBLACKS to compete for playoff spots.
3. Bo Levi Mitchell is worth the hype.
