The league announced that Green Day would be the halftime show for the 110th Grey Cup next month in Hamilton, and although the response was generally positive (and I think it’s a great choice), it reminded me that there are some evergreen CFL discussions that just won’t go away. I wanted to note these here for future reference.
The Standard CFL Arguments.
1. The Halftime Act.
“The halftime act should be Canadian! Dozens of people would surely tune in to hear (obscure band from Flin Flon, or some other band that was popular 40 years ago and which would appeal to that coveted 65+ demographic, or some artist that it turns out has already played at the Grey Cup , etc)”
You know what, we’ve already had Justin Bieber, Gordon Lightfoot, Bachman/Turner, the Guess Who, Bryan Adams, the Tragically Hip, Blue Rodeo, Nickelback, Celine Dion and Shania Twain at the Grey Cup, so you don’t need to suggest those. Come up with some other suggestions. (Also for the record, Rush is no longer available.)
Incidentally the 78th Grey Cup featured “Esmeralda Colombian Dance Group, Mlada Srbadia Serbian Folk Dance Group, Joy of Movement Studiom Yuen’s Institute of Tae Kwon-do and the Hungarian Csardas Dancers of Vancouver”. Now THAT was a show.
I tend to feel that if the halftime act is a band that I, an old guy, actually like, it’s probably not exactly the right choice to attract new interest to the CFL.
2. CFL Expansion
“The CFL should expand! Here, let me show my amazing geographic knowledge with a list of a dozen random cities.”
I have actually seen Churchill, Manitoba and Cornwall, Ontario offered as serious suggestions. Which kind of reminds me of Nate Silver’s infamous recommendation, based on counting up Google searches for the term “NHL”, that the NHL should consider to something called “Sudbury – Thunder Bay.” Never mind that those cities are an eleven hour drive apart. Let’s just name random cities.
3. Location and Time of Games
The right day, time and location for home games (which usually means “more convenient for me, personally”)
(Sometimes people say “If the Argos played at York, they’d attract lots of fans from north of the city”, which conveniently ignores that they’d probably lose even more fans who take Lakeshore trains to the games.)
Paul Woods noted that “it is surely a prerequisite that anyone who says “York” lives west of Thunder Bay and has never been to Toronto.”
4. Attendance Problems in Toronto
“CFL attendance is a complicated problem, so here is a simple trivial solution that I can’t believe MLSE hasn’t tried”
Right, put up some billboards, blanket the newspapers with ads, why don’t they let people in for free, that’ll fix everything. Just ignore that, unlike every other CFL city, there are five other pro teams in town, and an NFL team just an hour away, and another couple of NFL teams just four hours away, and another entire CFL team just down the QEW.
My friend Cameron Hayglass added another –
5. Problems Unique to the CFL
“only in the CFL!” (highlights problem routinely seen in at least one of NBA/NHL/MLB/NFL)
and I then also remembered to include
6. New Stadiums
Any observation about building a new stadium anywhere that does not include any indication of where the $200,000,000 is coming from.
And a problem in every league everywhere –
7. The Fix Is In.
“The referees and the league obviously want team X to win“, say fans of team Y that just lost to team X.