{"id":192971,"date":"2025-10-06T11:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/192971\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T11:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T11:14:09","slug":"the-cfl-shouldnt-move-the-goalposts-for-canadas-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/192971\/","title":{"rendered":"The CFL shouldn\u2019t move the goalposts for Canada\u2019s game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

B.C. Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke passes during the first half of a CFL football game against the Calgary Stampeders, in Vancouver, on Saturday.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

One of the defining differences between Canadian and American football \u2013 and one of the clearest reflections of the cultural cleavages that forged their distinct styles \u2013 is the space involved.<\/p>\n

Canadian football, with its three downs and 12 players, was born from the sweeping, lateral style of rugby, an heirloom of Canada\u2019s colonial past. It has thus tended toward the traditional, including by playing on long and wide rugby-style fields \u2013 110 yards by 65 yards \u2013 with goalposts similarly placed at the front of their end zones. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, American football began as a hybrid of soccer and Canadian-style rugby in the 1880s, but without British obligations, the Americans aggressively experimented on their rules, making it a four-down game while shrinking the number of players to 11 and their fields to 100 yards by 53.3 yards, in part to fit them into existing infrastructure. <\/p>\n

Even when Canadian football adopted such American innovations as blocking and the forward pass in the 1920s, its field dimensions helped it retain rugby\u2019s free-flowing, speed-oriented spirit. <\/p>\n

Each country shaped their games as their physical and cultural circumstances dictated. Which is why the Canadian Football League<\/a> is getting things exactly backward with its recently announced slate of rule changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Prominent among the reforms coming in the next two years: the Canadian field\u2019s length will shrink to match American football\u2019s, and goalposts will move to the back of the end zone. Physical circumstances are being dictated to shape the game, purportedly to increase offence and attract new audiences.<\/p>\n

Outraged fans argue that these changes will turn the CFL into a cheap facsimile of the National Football League, which has blotted out the sun by turning the little game inspired by Canadian rugby into the world\u2019s most profitable pro sports league. <\/p>\n

For those loyalists, moving the goalposts to draw new fans is, well, moving the goalposts on what constitutes a strong Canadian game. Many have also been rankled that the league did not consult with fans, players or coaches (though, it should be said, it had no obligation to do so). <\/p>\n

Those reactions reflect the CFL\u2019s unspoken role, whether it likes it or not, as the most prominent custodian of a national sport \u2013 and of a uniquely uniting national feature that\u2019s nearly as old as Confederation.<\/p>\n

The CFL needed to change. Per-game attendance has declined by around 20 per cent over the last two decades, most steeply in Canada\u2019s biggest cities. Only two of the league\u2019s nine teams are profitable today. And many of the rule proposals happen to make sense. <\/p>\n

But even if these changes don\u2019t represent full Americanization, as critics have contended, they\u2019re certainly not acts of definition \u2013 rather, they buff out the game\u2019s noteworthy beauty marks. It feels like the only bulwark left is the three-down rule; losing that would be the sport\u2019s death blow.<\/p>\n

Opinion: CFL\u2019s misstep erodes its covenant with the country<\/a><\/p>\n

The changes will have knock-on effects, too. The CFL did not consult Football Canada or U Sports,<\/a> the national sport governing body for universities; its members must now figure out how to resize their fields \u2013 which could cost as much as $1-million each \u2013 or allow them to become outdated. <\/p>\n

The CFL\u2019s field decision thus threatens the Canadian game at the grassroots, literally. And for a league that also serves to extend the careers of young Canadian athletes, the potential of two different Canadian football styles represents an unnecessary complication.<\/p>\n

The CFL had to do something. But there is an argument for a league that leans into what makes it unique at a time of rising national pride, and establishes itself as the responsible steward of this special game.<\/p>\n

In that context, the rule changes\u2019 success wouldn\u2019t be measured by interest from outside Canada or even in Toronto; it would be whether they grow the game across the country, and lead to expansions into markets like Atlantic Canada that could now, like the Americans once did, fit the game better into existing infrastructure. <\/p>\n

The ardour that the sport evokes, especially in oft-overlooked cities such as Regina and Hamilton, is remarkable. It brings uniquely Canadian communities together, and can help knit this vast, divided country. The CFL risks disenchanting these diehard fans \u2013 and their animating Canadian spirit \u2013 at its own peril.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: B.C. Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke passes during the first half of a CFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,521,875,522,520,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,82,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-192971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadian-news","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}