{"id":415143,"date":"2026-01-17T10:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415143\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T10:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:48:20","slug":"gm-ed-hervey-criticizes-cflpa-report-card-despite-elks-improvement-demands-greater-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/415143\/","title":{"rendered":"GM Ed Hervey criticizes CFLPA report card despite Elks’ improvement, demands greater transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Photo courtesy: Dale MacMillan\/Edmonton Elks<\/p>\n

The Edmonton Elks were one of the big winners of the Canadian Football League Players\u2019 Association\u2019s 2025 team report cards<\/a>, but general manager Ed Hervey isn\u2019t interested in taking a victory lap.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the CFL Winter Meetings in Calgary, the 52-year-old executive did not pull any punches when asked about his players\u2019 responses, questioning the validity of the published results and demanding more accountability from the union.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can be honest with you, we did our own internal survey as well, and our grades were better than what was publicly noted,\u201d Hervey said. \u201cI don\u2019t really understand the grading system, to be quite honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is a level of improvement, I didn\u2019t really, honestly look as to what level that it went up or down. It was brought to my attention that the grades were out, I kind of chuckled and kept moving to stuff that was more important, to be honest with you. If I\u2019m going to draw a positive, yes, if we\u2019re moving, that\u2019s a positive in the right direction. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do, but we have a bar that\u2019s far greater than any grading system can place on us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Elks were the lowest graded team on the CFLPA\u2019s inaugural report card<\/a> following the 2024 season, receiving an overall D+. Edmonton was also the only franchise to receive an F in any single category, doing so in both nutrition & diet and training camp.<\/p>\n

After sweeping organizational changes that included the hiring of Hervey, those marks improved dramatically on the 2025 version of the report card. While the Elks still ranked fifth league-wide, they jumped to a B- overall and received the first-ever A+ in a single category for team travel.<\/p>\n

That did not appear to satisfy Hervey, who chose to fixate on one particular grade for nutrition & diet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I did have one question, I would just like to know how the grades work, because I\u2019ve got to say this publicly: our food was definitely better than a C god darn minus. We had a chef in there that was cooking every day, so I don\u2019t know where C- came from if that\u2019s the case,\u201d he stressed. \u201cI\u2019m going to defend the people that cook the food and let them know publicly that our grades internally were much higher and we\u2019re going to stick with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that are involved with the food and have nothing really to do as far as working in the organization, those people have businesses outside of public scrutiny. We in football, we can deal with public scrutiny. It\u2019s the businesses who are apprehensive about doing it, especially when they don\u2019t know how they\u2019re being graded is the concern. At least we\u2019d like to see how they\u2019re graded. How does it work? Is the meals tied to other things? Because I didn\u2019t have a C- meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

At least one respondent to the CFLPA survey seemed to agree with Hervey, writing that the food in Edmonton was \u201cthe best it\u2019s been in years.\u201d However, they noted that players had to pay for those meals, which drove down the grade in that category. Also included under the same umbrella was the availability of a club dietician, as well as the quality and quantity of nutritional supplements provided by the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no free meals on any team, so I don\u2019t know where that grade came from,\u201d Hervey insisted.<\/p>\n

Elks\u2019 head coach Mark Kilam backed up his boss\u2019s assessment that the meals provided were top-notch. He also made clear that the franchise was fully aware of its own deficiencies prior to the report card being released, including concerns over what one respondent dubbed \u201cterrible rehab planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we finished our season, we did a three-week post-mortem and combed through every detail of our organization. We knew that there were some challenges in some certain areas before that,\u201d Kilam said. \u201cWe don\u2019t rely on report cards. We handle our business. We were very detailed in what we do, and we\u2019re trying to take steps to remedy any and all concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

CFLPA report card grades are generated from responses to a 78-question anonymous survey distributed to all CFL players that included multiple-choice, rating, and open-ended questions. Scoring for each category is then averaged and normalized to translate the data into standardized letter grades with assistance from Dr. Desmond McEwan, PhD, an assistant professor in sport psychology at the University of British Columbia.<\/p>\n

Hervey stated that the Elks\u2019 internal process for assessment is much more straightforward and provides clarity in areas that he doesn\u2019t receive from the CFLPA.<\/p>\n

\u201cOurs are very simple questions. Ours is a very simple five-star system, and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s not tabulated,\u201d he explained. \u201cI would like to see the grading, that\u2019s all. I\u2019d like the union to give us the sheets, to show us the questions and how they\u2019re graded, so we can at least know.\u201d<\/p>\n

One aspect where the general manager appeared to concede was the persistent complaints made by opposing teams regarding the visiting hotel in Edmonton, which was called \u201cunacceptable\u201d in the report card. Sources tell 3DownNation that facility was chosen due to a familial connection with a former high-ranking team official, but Hervey was clear that the business relationship has now ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat deal was done before I got here, and we\u2019ve made the improvements. We\u2019re changing the hotel this year. That was a contractual thing, so don\u2019t pin that on us,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cWe\u2019ll put it on the record. We are going back to the Westin this year, so everyone league-wide can smile and feel good about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether teams can feel good about the report cards is another story, and they are certain to remain controversial. While the NFL recently filed a grievance against its players\u2019 association to prevent their version of the report card, the CFL has not indicated that it will follow sui<\/a>t.<\/p>\n

That is unlikely to please decision-makers like Hervey, regardless of how well their teams actually perform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy: Dale MacMillan\/Edmonton Elks The Edmonton Elks were one of the big winners of the Canadian Football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,49,48,7028,174446,521,522,520,174315,13417,23752,77213,2998,527,15677,2002,174447,82],"class_list":["post-415143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-leagu","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-cflpa","tag-ed-hervey","tag-edmonton","tag-elks","tag-food","tag-football","tag-hotel","tag-league","tag-report-card","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415143","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=415143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}