The most Canadian CFL moments ever
As you spend your Canada Day weekend (hopefully) enjoying some BBQ, maybe catching a parade and taking in some fireworks, at some point in there you’ll likely survey everything around you and think about what it means to be Canadian.
We hope your weekend involves some Canadian football, too. When our week started at the league office, we started talking about what people often call the nuances of the Canadian game and how they might invoke a similar Canada Day feel when they pop up in a game.
Here are a few uniquely Canadian moments that came to mind for us. If you have more, add them in the comments below.
Lui Passaglia kicks one for Canada
In 1994, the Grey Cup game had a distinct us-vs-them feel. The BC Lions hosted the game at home against the Baltimore Stallions. It was the tail end of the U.S. expansion era and the first-ever Grey Cup to feature an American team playing against a Canadian one.
With the game tied at end of the fourth quarter, BC’s Lui Passaglia hit a field goal from 38-yards out to lift the Canadian team over their American counterparts, 26-23. The American contingent of the CFL would leave the league after the 1995 season and the CFL has stayed solely Canadian since.
Rouge-mania
Tie Game. Final Play…. Only needing a single to win…. The Bombers & Als gave us this glorious series of events. To a CFL fan, it’s just one of those amazing things that makes the CFL what it is.
This might be the creme de la creme of a CFL moment. We usually see this at least once in a season, but this example between the Als and Bombers from last summer is the one that sticks in my mind. Whenever teams get in this situation, trying to avoid giving up a costly single at the end of the game and punting the ball back and forth, the appearance of chaos on the field is matched and then some in the crowd and it goes further on Twitter. While Canadian fans may not fully understand what’s happening in front of them, they’re generally aware that it can happen. Watching Americans try to wrap their heads around what they’re seeing is always one of my favourite things.
Can I kick it? Yes, you can.
Full disclosure, I included this moment because I saw it live in Edmonton in 2013. It’s similar to the punting back and forth, but it doesn’t happen as often. When the Bombers botched their long snap, Odell Willis wisely booted the ball down the field, creating first a touchdown opportunity and excellent field position for his offence if they can’t get to the end zone. This is a play that doesn’t happen in the U.S. — you can’t kick the football in this situation in the American game — and from how the players reacted after the game, they kind of winged it. The best quote from that locker room that night was Marcus Howard admitting that when he threw the ball over his head, he only did so because he heard someone behind him call for it.
“Now that I think about it,” he said, “it might have been the Winnipeg player that said that.”
It’s one of my favourite in-game moments ever.
