The game is called “FOOT-ball.” The Canadian variety of the sport, to be specific. (Or American, if CFL commissioner Stewart Johnston has his way.)
Football, on this continent, is a violent game. It is distinguished from the sham violence of soccer, the grinding violence of rugby or the mayhem of Aussie rules football, which is what you get when you dress a hundred juvenile delinquents in short shorts and turn them loose on a field the size of Canberra.
There are three main pillars of football: gambling, violence and occasional breathtaking athleticism.
Of late, the gambling element has taken over. It was rubbed in our face constantly during Sunday night’s hit-and-miss Grey Cup telecast on TSN. When the signal wasn’t blacking out, it was telling us to go bankrupt on FanDuel.
By any measure, football is a rough game. In championship contests like the Grey Cup, the hits pack such a wallop that you wonder how the recipient staggers to his feet after.
Against this background, we have the Alouettes Kabion Ento making one of those breathtaking athletic plays, slicing in front of Saskatchewan receiver Dohnte Meyers to knock down a sure touchdown and turn the ball over to the Alouettes.
It appeared to be redemption for Ento, who had previously dropped a sure interception with nothing in front of him but open field. Referee André Proulx and his crew got it right — incomplete pass.
Then came the interference call from video review. Once Toronto had a look at the play, the decision was that we can’t have the lads actually playing football out there.
Was there contact? Absolutely. Did it impede or interfere with Meyers and his ability to catch the ball in any way, shape or form? Absolutely not.
But given another chance in the most shambolic way possible, the Roughriders made the CFL’s embarrassment complete by scoring on the next play. With former Als quarterback Trevor Harris playing as crisp a game as you will see and bull-like running back A.J. Ouellette running wild, even late-game heroics from one-legged Alouettes signal-caller Davis Alexander weren’t enough.
If he stays in the league and heals that troublesome hamstring, Alexander is going to win some Grey Cups. But between now and next season, GM Danny Maciocia has to find a better backup QB than McLeod Bethel-Thompson. On multiple occasions Sunday, Alexander proved that even on one leg, he’s more mobile than Bethel-Thompson.
And better at playing that game we call “football.”
Boston Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman deflects the puck away from Canadiens winger Cole Caufield during third in Montreal on Saturday night.
When it lames, it palls: Nothing like a flotilla of injuries to make a particularly dark, dim November seem even more somber than usual.
On top of Alexander’s hamstring injury that may have cost the Alouettes a Grey Cup title, we had Alexander Newhook’s leg crumpling like an accordion as he flew into the boards, Kaiden Guhle needing surgery that will keep him on the sidelines a further two months, hard luck Kirby Dach’s foot broken when he blocked a shot, Patrik Laine recovering from core muscle surgery until somewhere around the Olympic break and captain Nick Suzuki something less than his usual indestructible self, probably resulting from another shot block.
There’s no explaining it. The previous medical staff was reshuffled following season after season of such hard-luck pile-ups. The current staff seemed to enjoy better luck for a time, but now the story is much the same and it is going to be very hard to sustain the Canadiens’ early-season excellence in the face of the current wave of injuries.
We can hope that Laval call-up Jared Davidson, solid against the Bruins Saturday, can at least bring more than Joe Veleno has shown so far. We can hope that veterans Brendan Gallagher and Josh Anderson find some of the energy that propelled the team through the second half of last season. We can hope that rookie Ivan Demidov regains his sizzle.
But none of it will help unless the goaltenders start making saves and the Canadiens figure out how to play with a two-man advantage.
Somewhere around the 1,032nd minute Saturday night (okay, we exaggerate slightly) of a power play that had all the life of Monty Python’s dead parrot pining for the fjords, it occurred to us that rather than have Noah Dobson out there doing a solid job of defending on a 5-on-3, it might be useful to have the lethal stick of Laine poised to strike like a cobra on a mongoose.
Laine may be a forgotten man for now, a one-trick pony who was struggling to find a role — but what a trick it is. At least we know that, given a centimetre of space and a microsecond of time, Laine will shoot the m*$Q&!#@&$ puck.
It’s a trick that youngster Demidov and some others still need to learn.
Heroes: Trevor Harris, A.J. Ouellette, the Vancouver Rise, Félix Auger-Aliassime, Victoria Mboko, Jake Evans, Jared Davidson, Cole Caufield &&&& last but not least, Davis Alexander.
Zeros: CFL replay review, TSN, FanDuel, Bet365, the Canadiens’ 5-on-3 power play, Stewart Johnston, Wayne Gretzky, Bud Selig Jr., Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.
Now and forever.
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