Fans weigh in: CFL can stick changes where sun doesn't shine

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Published Oct 02, 2025 • 5 minute read

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Bombers fans don’t seem to be happy with the new CFL rules coming. Photo by Chris Procaylo /Winnipeg SunArticle content

The email inbox hasn’t been this busy in a while, and it’s not readers who want to run me out of town.

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Since writing about the changes coming to the CFL over the next two years, the feedback has been just like the weather — way hotter than normal.

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Let’s start with Tom Stangl, a CFL fan down in Wisconsin.

Stangl stumbled on the three-down game on CBS-TV back in 2019, quickly becoming a fan of the Blue Bombers.

“I love, love, love the game,” Tom said. “So entertaining. I love the field position strategy, the rouge and the wider field and deeper end zones. I also love that the entire salary cap is around $6 million per team.”

That email came before first-year CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston announced three changes that will make the game more American: Shortening the field to 100 yards, moving the goal posts to the back of the end zone and trimming the end zones to 15 yards.

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“I agree with Nathan Rourke and coach O’Shea,” Tom said in a subsequent message, referring to the B.C. Lions quarterback and coach of the Bombers, both of whom spoke out against the changes. “The reason I watch the CFL is for the field position, the strategy and the kicking game. I think it makes the CFL look like three-dimensional chess to the NFL game of checkers.”

Tom went on to acknowledge seven of the CFL’s nine teams are probably losing money and need more bums in the seats, but he’s not sure this is the way to do it.

“The conspiracy theorist in me agrees that it might be a way to develop a farm club for the NFL, which would be the most awful thing to happen to the CFL.”

Tom isn’t the only one worried the CFL has ulterior motives in kowtowing to its bigger, brasher brother down south.

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“Mark my words, the new CFL rules are because of a more grand plan to expand to the U.S. or even to have a more seamless merger with another league,” wrote Carlos Galante, a former quarterback on the Manitoba amateur scene. “The motive is to get more TV $$, but at the expense of tradition.”

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Tradition is what it’s all about for Mary McDowell.

Mary grew up near Toronto, moved to Ottawa in the late 1960s and has been a loyal season-ticket holder there since the late 1980s.

She’s been taking her youngest son to games since he was 10.

“When I learned of the proposed changes to the CFL, I was and remain very distraught,” Mary wrote. “We do not want our unique league turned into a ‘copy’ of the league south of the border. To us, they are unnecessary changes, unrequested by true fans of the league.”

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Mary wasn’t shy about the patriotic part of this, too

Canada is being bullied, threatened and insulted — and we want to Americanize the game now? It’s as baffling to her as it is to me.

Mary vowed to wear black to the remaining games and carry a sign that expressed her feelings.

Her email ended with this: “If these changes go through, with tremendous sadness, felt more deeply than these mere words convey, we will not renew our seats.”

Mary’s decision to wear black came from an online petition started by Matthew Campbell, a former Canadian and long-time CFL fan living in Houston.

Campbell’s petition drew thousands of supporters within days of its launch, yet it hardly got any attention outside of this space.

CFL fan Tyler Hopson in Regina took note of that.

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“Thanks for your story on the CFL petition,” Tyler emailed. “I’ve hardly seen any coverage of it, which struck me as odd. Some of the media seem almost afraid to speak up or at least fully cover the varying views.

“Sure hope that the Commissioner is listening — too little, but maybe not too late.”

Rick Horner hopes it’s not.

A coach in amateur football, Horner echoed Mary’s concerns, calling this an “attack on a uniquely Canadian institution.” He even wrote a letter to Minister of Heritage Steven Guilbeault.

What he wrote to me: “At a time when Canadians are incensed by the threats from the U.S. President and are reacting by rejecting those things American, it seems like a betrayal to all Canadian football fans and all Canadians.”

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Like me, Horner is far from convinced the changes will even increase scoring, as the mucky-mucks predict.

A couple of angry fans from B.C. aren’t, either, including Barry, a 14-year Lions season-ticket holder.

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“I do not want to see our game go anywhere near the American one,” Barry wrote. “Everyone I talk to in my pub is irate about this… especially the sneaky way they have gone about telling us… no fans were asked their opinion on changes and it is us who are paying for the tickets. Tell them to take the changes and put them where the sun does not shine.”

Barry planned to cancel his tickets.

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Jerry, in Surrey, will be speaking with his wallet, too.

“Changing the dimensions of the field — that’s a killer,” he wrote. “I’ll plan on not attending another CFL game if that change is accepted. And I won’t watch it on TV either. A distinction of the CFL is its differences with American football. Becoming more like the NFL won’t revive the CFL.”

Erick Gelsinger, an avid Saskatchewan fan living in Ontario, weighed in with this: “They need to stop second-guessing what they think the fans want…..the field size is unique to Canada…so why change what’s not broken.”

You could argue parts of the CFL are, in fact, broken — hello, Toronto.

That’s why not everybody is dead-set against the changes.

Bombers fan Bruce Chegus wrote to say he hates seeing vast empty seats across the league — except for Winnipeg and Regina — and realizes something needs to be done.

“Running a business with a view to the future leaves little room for nostalgia and/or sentiment,” is how Bruce put it.

Just wait until that nostalgia and sentiment stops showing up at the gate on game day.

paul.friesen@kleinmedia.ca

X: @friesensunmedia

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Fans weigh in: CFL can stick changes where sun doesn’t shine

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