Latest / The CFL Outsiders / The CFL Outsiders May Off Season Bonus "Come On, Entertain US!"

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The CFL Outsiders May Off Season Bonus "Come On, Entertain US!" · The CFL Outsiders

• 0:36
  Hey kids, welcome back to an off-season bonus issue of the CFL Outsiders.
• 0:41
  We're going to be talking about some off-season news and the draft here.
• 0:45
  And as usual, joining me is GT.
• 0:48
  Hey everyone.
• 0:49
  and MJ.
• 0:50
  Hey everyone, it's nice to be back.
• 0:51
  I missed all of you.
• 0:53
  Yes, we're seeing if we have to retrain ourselves here.
• 0:57
  And you should notice, by the way, from the opening, MJ went out and got us a fancy, dancey new logo.
• 1:03
  And we've got a new sort of portrait thing for all of our social media.
• 1:07
  So we're we're working at getting better this year, if we can at all.
• 1:12
  We're also going to the folks on Instagram see our avatars more.
• 1:16
  We've kind of standardized them a little bit and we're going to.
• 1:20
  I'll talk at the end, we're on a whole bunch more social media platforms now.
• 1:24
  So lots of ways to find us if you want.
• 1:26
  I wanted to thank MJ for starting that process and then the way it ended up.
• 1:31
  think it's a terrific logo and I think it turned out really well.
• 1:35
  So congratulations, good job.
• 1:37
  Good job, good job.
• 1:38
  oh
• 1:42
  very creative and my cousin designed this logo for us.
• 1:46
  Everyone's very creative except for me.
• 1:48
  So I'm happy to offload work to them when necessary.
• 1:51
  But yeah, it was great.
• 1:53
  yeah, between her and my sister.
• 1:56
  Yeah, that's right.
• 1:57
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:59
  Okay, so yeah, and like I said, let us know what you think.
• 2:03
  I think that it's a professional new look, much better than the crap I'd been putting out before.
• 2:08
  However, we wanted this to be a nice positive episode because the draft was here and there was some good news there to talk about and everything.
• 2:17
  And then the CFL decided that...
• 2:19
  For some reason on the same day as the draft, they were going to drop a major change to their future scheduling and playoffs.
• 2:28
  I'm guessing by now everybody's probably heard about this, but basically I'll try and run through this and make it as simple as I can.
• 2:38
  They will be moving the start date for these changes all take effect in 2027 with the full new rules.
• 2:45
  So they've been moving the start date to the May long weekend.
• 2:49
  That gives them some more time at the end of the season and they're going to a four week playoff format.
• 2:55
  All or the eight teams out of the nine will make it into the playoffs.
• 3:01
  The first two teams in each division play what's I think they use it in curling.
• 3:06
  They call it a page playoff.
• 3:07
  So they play in the first week.
• 3:10
  The winner goes on and gets a bye to week three.
• 3:12
  The loser plays again in week two against the winners of the other games.
• 3:18
  And those other games are, I think they're calling them play-in games.
• 3:21
  This is all very convoluted for me.
• 3:24
  The fifth seed will play the eighth seed.
• 3:26
  The sixth seed will play the seventh seed.
• 3:29
  The winners of those will go on and play the losers of the page playoff system in the second round.
• 3:35
  showed up.
• 3:36
  of those will go on to play the winners of it, yes.
• 3:39
  And then the winners of those will finally go to the great copy.
• 3:42
  It adds, I think, about four games worth of revenue and gets more teams, home games and everything.
• 3:48
  To me, that's the only reason they're doing it.
• 3:51
  I'll let you guys talk before I get in too much, but they're trying to make it say that, you know, it's to make the season more exciting and the playoffs more meaningful.
• 4:00
  I'm skeptical.
• 4:01
  Who wants to...
• 4:02
  be the first to voice tell me I'm wrong if you think so
• 4:06
  Go ahead, MJ
• 4:07
  Wow
• 4:07
  I don't even...
• 4:09
  8 teams out of 9.
• 4:11
  89 % of the teams are now going to make the playoffs.
• 4:14
  I don't...
• 4:15
  Okay, so I have several thoughts about this and I've been...
• 4:20
  I actually had to write down a whole chart because when they said it I couldn't figure it out.
• 4:24
  I had to write it down as a visual learner and then it's still...
• 4:28
  It's a lot of playoffs games.
• 4:29
  quickly, this kind of makes regular season pointless.
• 4:34
  You just don't want to be last.
• 4:36
  And it's hard enough to get people to go to regular season games as it is sometimes.
• 4:42
  we were talking about this because I think this is the problem the NBA is having when you have these play-in games and there's so many playoff games, there's a lot of load
• 4:51
  management of players.
• 4:53
  And my concern is going to be that down the stretch, if everything's kind of settled in September, kind of where it's going to be, how many starters are going to be sitting so
• 5:03
  they're ready for playoffs?
• 5:04
  I think there's going be a lot more load management.
• 5:07
  They think that people are going to be paying and coming to a lot of playoff games and I don't know if the CFL has looked around lately But I have to buy blackberries for a child
• 5:19
  I'm not gonna be able to go to two to three playoff games.
• 5:22
  I Think it's gonna be there.
• 5:23
  I think they think that the people are gonna be
• 5:26
  chomping at the bit to fill commonwealth or bc place and i don't know if that's necessarily accurate i feel like the league is trying to moneyball a situation and they're
• 5:39
  trying to moneyball how to generate revenue and i think they've gone a little too far down into the rabbit hole and i don't think
• 5:46
  The longevity and long-term revenue of the league depends on a page play, playoff format where eight of nine teams make a playoffs.
• 5:54
  I mean, I can talk about this more when we talk about flag because there are grassroots things that they are not doing.
• 6:00
  And as we know, they are not marketing.
• 6:02
  And then this was really upsetting why would you announce this on draft day?
• 6:06
  There is a lot of players.
• 6:08
  in the draft.
• 6:08
  Like that one guy who got selected by the Red Bucks, had like a 200 person like banquet hall rented out for his big like first selection in the draft and nobody's talking about
• 6:19
  that.
• 6:19
  We're talking about page playoff format.
• 6:22
  Also about the the May Long Weekend opening, I don't know who is going to a May Long Weekend football game in Alberta because everyone is camping.
• 6:32
  And they said that they're going to play a lot of games that are going to focus on long weekend football.
• 6:36
  I think I don't...
• 6:40
  Are you giving up like Turkey at Grandma's to go to football?
• 6:43
  I don't know.
• 6:45
  I don't know.
• 6:46
  I guess we're going to see how it all plays out.
• 6:48
  I want to be optimistic about scheduling.
• 6:50
  I don't like sitting outside in November.
• 6:52
  But I mean, last weekend here in Alberta, there was a foot of snow.
• 6:56
  They're going to be doing training camp in the snow.
• 6:58
  You're going to be doing preseason, maybe in the snow.
• 7:02
  Your U-sports players are still going to be in school for training camp.
• 7:07
  You're going to be before the NFL draft.
• 7:08
  So there's a lot of there's a lot of little behind the scene things that start to domino.
• 7:13
  And so I'm not quite sure.
• 7:14
  I mean, clearly they've run through all the scenarios and decided this is like the cost benefit analysis is that this is.
• 7:20
  going to work for them but I just wonder if it's a short term gain versus a long term gain.
• 7:25
  Yeah, it's interesting.
• 7:27
  just felt like, again, blindsided.
• 7:30
  I will say the only thing I thought of is they did a really good job of keeping this quiet.
• 7:35
  I heard no rumors and I like to think I'm fairly well tapped into the news makers
• 7:42
  I certainly follow enough of the sources around that I think I would have heard about it if there was some talk.
• 7:47
  This basically came out of nowhere other than a conversation that I remember having Stuart Johnson saying something at Grey Cup.
• 7:54
  And other than that, there really was no talk of this at all.
• 7:57
  And again, it's just like, where is this stuff coming from and who's driving this?
• 8:02
  Is it him driving the governors or is the governor's driving him?
• 8:06
  We're not sure and there doesn't seem to be any direction to it.
• 8:10
  for them to as you said to make this announcement on the day that the that they're taking away from their future players in their futures possible stars is just ludicrous you could
• 8:20
  have done this at any other time a month ago or a month from now if it's going to be next year we did not need to know about this now it wasn't like there was the XFL League like
• 8:30
  that we're ready had to worry about you know when he had to come out and talk they were talking about talking because it was about to the u.s.
• 8:38
  this was
• 8:39
  under no one's radar.
• 8:41
  So unless someone was about to break the story and no one has claimed, Justin Dunker, any of the other guys that usually claim they have the story have not claimed they had the
• 8:51
  story in advance.
• 8:53
  So, you know, I've heard nothing about NDAs signed like there was about the rules.
• 8:58
  So this just seems to have come out of like a group of guys sitting down and making this decision.
• 9:04
  Now, they did have the
• 9:06
  Players Association involved because the Players Association signed off on it.
• 9:10
  So they must have known and they obviously had conversations and negotiations with them and they're going to make more money.
• 9:16
  So I thought the funniest thing about it was Stuart Johnson trying to sell it all about the excitement and how great it is for the league and how this league's moving forward and
• 9:25
  wonderful, wonderful.
• 9:26
  And then the players representative, he stood there and said, this is about the money.
• 9:31
  We're making more money.
• 9:32
  We're happy.
• 9:32
  That's it.
• 9:33
  That's, said, players play for three reasons.
• 9:36
  They play for love of the game.
• 9:37
  They play because they want to, and they play for money.
• 9:40
  And we're going to make more money.
• 9:41
  So that's why we did it.
• 9:42
  And so forget about all the other superfluous nonsense that Stuart Johnson likes to spout.
• 9:48
  it's about the money for everyone involved.
• 9:51
  including the players, which is good.
• 9:53
  But the rest of it, it's changed for the sake of change.
• 9:57
  It's not necessary.
• 9:59
  I'm with a lot of other people that have said, if there's 12 teams, this makes sense.
• 10:04
  Even if there's 10 teams, this sort of makes sense.
• 10:08
  But at nine teams, this makes no sense.
• 10:11
  So I don't get it.
• 10:13
  know, MJ, you said you were a visual learner and you had to figure this out.
• 10:18
  Well, look at this.
• 10:18
  This is my little graph, because I had to do the same thing.
• 10:22
  So I did last year's, I did it based on last year's playoff.
• 10:26
  And that's how I did it.
• 10:28
  So I just did every first, so I went by position by where they teams were.
• 10:33
  And then I went the team.
• 10:35
  just assumed the team that was in the higher position won each round.
• 10:38
  That's how I made it.
• 10:39
  And it would have ended up with Saskatchewan and Hamilton in the gray cup.
• 10:43
  So it would have been Hamilton instead of Montreal.
• 10:45
  that's what i ended up with if i if this is even right i'm not even a percent sure i got it right
• 10:51
  I like did it with a grey cup as Riders/Als and worked my way back out.
• 10:56
  Yeah.
• 10:57
  down.
• 10:58
  anyways, it's convoluted.
• 11:02
  As you said, the NBA has play-ins.
• 11:05
  So this isn't the first team, the first league to do play-ins.
• 11:09
  It's just, again, a too small a league to do this in.
• 11:13
  It's just, if they wanted to change the format as much as I didn't like it,
• 11:18
  they could have just gone to the top 6 teams in order and been done with it.
• 11:23
  And then, and that would have worked.
• 11:25
  That would have changed the format and everyone would have been happy.
• 11:28
  But
• 11:29
  have to be quirky and weird, you just go back to your home at home total score.
• 11:32
  Yeah, yeah.
• 11:35
  Ryan Ballentine had an interesting question when he was doing the interview with Jay McNeil on the Stampeters announcement, And Ryan Ballentine, who used to, is still part of
• 11:44
  Three Down, if I remember correctly, and used to be the, you know, the Stamps radio main podcast guy.
• 11:51
  And he asked the question, have you guys figured out that literally you could have a team that
• 11:56
  is 0 and 18 win the gray cup because if two teams are 0 and 18, one of them is going to win a tiebreaker and get in the playoffs.
• 12:05
  They then win four games and they've won the Grey Cup That's crazy.
• 12:10
  That's absolutely crazy.
• 12:11
  That's how ludicrous would that make us look, you know?
• 12:15
  It's just, it's bizarro.
• 12:17
  It's really bizarro.
• 12:18
  So yeah, I don't get it.
• 12:20
  I mean, I
• 12:22
  I get that they want money, but there's other ways that they could have made money.
• 12:25
  They could have made money by putting more bums in the seats by advertising and marketing the teams.
• 12:30
  They could have made more money by saying, we've got a 10th team coming and here are three new teams and then we're going to a new playoff format.
• 12:39
  the podcasts that I've listened to since then, seem to be pretty unanimous that podcasters in general, are the, who are,
• 12:46
  We're the guys that are supporting the league.
• 12:48
  We're doing more press for this league than the press.
• 12:52
  We are the guys that are talking about this league on an ongoing basis to a worldwide audience, whether we got a hundred listeners or whether we have a thousand listeners.
• 13:03
  We are talking to a worldwide audience available to listen to us at any given week.
• 13:09
  And we are all in love with this league and not one of the podcasts have come out in favor of this.
• 13:14
  And every one of our podcasts that I've listened to so far is scratching their head about why and when and how they're doing this.
• 13:22
  It's just, and yeah, it's so sorry.
• 13:25
  I'm starting to rant
• 13:27
  Who would be home team in the Grey Cup?
• 13:30
  ah The first place team I assume will be home team.
• 13:33
  What if it's two first place teams?
• 13:35
  I was trying to figure this out.
• 13:37
  would have been the team with the best record.
• 13:39
  then there's going to be tiebreakers, tiebreakers, tiebreakers.
• 13:42
  Eventually you're going to get something.
• 13:43
  through the rules and they didn't actually say who would be the home team for Grey Cup.
• 13:48
  Like if you, right?
• 13:50
  I don't know if, say last year it would have been Saskatchewan BC in the division play showdown, then would they have crossed over and played the winner of, like I don't know
• 14:03
  how they, like...
• 14:04
  would be in the play-in, so the division showdown would be the riders and the lions, and the play-in would be the Elks and the Bombers.
• 14:12
  And so the riders won, right, and they would skip to round three, and then the round two would be the Bombers and the Lions, if I'm just doing my like, who made playoffs.
• 14:25
  Right, yeah, but-
• 14:26
  three would be Lions, Riders, and then whoever won that would go to Grey Cup.
• 14:30
  What is it called?
• 14:31
  Division Showdown?
• 14:32
  So stupid.
• 14:34
  It's so gimmicky.
• 14:35
  It's so gimmicky.
• 14:36
  Play-ins and division showdown like, oh, so embarrassing.
• 14:41
  I'm so embarrassed.
• 14:42
  we're going to have a trophy for the ninth team.
• 14:45
  Yes, Mr.
• 14:46
  Irrelevant, I don't know.
• 14:48
  I just agree with so many other thoughts because it's our turn to chime in, but so many people have already expressed these thoughts.
• 14:55
  That's why I kind of, know, I'm almost regurgitating, but a lot of them are also my thoughts.
• 15:02
  So I agree, you I wanna talk about them, but someone else said.
• 15:07
  you're going to know who's out of the playoffs by the fourth week or fifth week.
• 15:11
  all, if somebody starts 0 and 7 and everybody else is 5 and 5 or 4 and 3, well that team's never going to catch up.
• 15:19
  last year we knew Ottawa and Edmonton were pretty much out of it.
• 15:22
  Then Edmonton got hot and everybody got wound up, but they were still already out of it by Labor Day.
• 15:28
  And you know, it's going to be the same thing.
• 15:31
  Now you're going to be out of it by Canada Day.
• 15:33
  Like you literally be out of it by Canada Day, then why would you go to the park to watch Ottawa or Edmonton or Calgary or even Montreal or Winnipeg if your team's already out of
• 15:43
  it?
• 15:44
  Like if you know, why are you going to go to another 10 games?
• 15:48
  Why are you going to buy tickets on a walk-up basis to a game in August or September if your team's out of it by Canada Day?
• 15:57
  It's like baseball all over again, right?
• 15:59
  When you know what teams are out of it way early.
• 16:02
  and their attendance just falls off.
• 16:04
  It's like May and you can already- it's almost May and you can already tell which teams are not making baseball playoffs.
• 16:09
  Baseball literally started like three weeks ago.
• 16:12
  Yeah.
• 16:13
  Yeah.
• 16:13
  Well, if I can, I agree with pretty much everything you've said and as you said, it seems like a unanimous thing out there with it.
• 16:21
  frankly, at this point, I thought that somebody might've been on Blue Sky and one of the social media platforms that I'm on yesterday summed it up about the best I could.
• 16:32
  He just put up a short post and he said, I'm still in on the CFL, but with every announcement, I get a little less in.
• 16:41
  And that's because that's my, mean, it's stupid.
• 16:46
  I'll come right out and say it.
• 16:47
  I think there's.
• 16:49
  for all the reasons listed, it's stupid.
• 16:51
  If it's, if it's about money, okay.
• 16:52
  Then at least have, yeah, have the, the, the courage to stand up and say, we're going to take you for a bunch more money.
• 16:59
  But it's this and the rules were, as you said, GT, they were, they were both no word, no sort of trial balloons.
• 17:08
  What did the fans think?
• 17:09
  It was just dumped on us.
• 17:10
  And Stuart Johnson I saw in an article yesterday came out saying, the fans will get used to it.
• 17:17
  Or get over it.
• 17:18
  for the fans.
• 17:19
  was just one of the worst quotes I've heard in a long time.
• 17:22
  The fans will just get over it.
• 17:24
  Are you kidding me?
• 17:26
  And then you want us to lay down money week by week?
• 17:30
  And you know now that they're going to ask us to upfront pay for two playoff games just in case the team gets there.
• 17:37
  So they're going to add those into your season ticket package and then try to get it back from them somehow.
• 17:43
  Like good luck.
• 17:44
  And try to sell the second game, to a fan base, doesn't even know that the game's gonna happen until a week before.
• 17:52
  what happens to a team that maybe misses playoffs two years in a row?
• 17:56
  they have like a just really like as well.
• 17:58
  What happens to the financial stability of a team who doesn't get four playoff games a year?
• 18:03
  That team's gonna fold.
• 18:05
  Well, they're talking about that there's revenue sharing there, but it's not enough.
• 18:10
  No.
• 18:10
  gonna...
• 18:12
  I...
• 18:12
  It's not...
• 18:13
  But all I've heard my whole life is that this is a gate-driven leak.
• 18:17
  This is a gate-driven league and none of these changes seem gate-driven to me.
• 18:21
  They are TV revenue driven.
• 18:24
  This has nothing to do with people sitting in stands.
• 18:28
  Nothing.
• 18:28
  They don't care.
• 18:29
  They don't care if you go to that game or not.
• 18:31
  It's pretty obvious that this is a completely for TV and nothing else.
• 18:36
  And if they get half again or double what they've got from TSN because of this, okay, I can see it.
• 18:43
  That makes the league successful.
• 18:45
  I don't think that's gonna happen.
• 18:46
  They might pick up another five million out of it or something.
• 18:49
  I can't talk about it much more because frankly, I am just disgusted with the way this league is going.
• 18:58
  I don't want to carry on either, but only because he does tend to make statements that are just like, whoa, where did that come from?
• 19:05
  You know, another reason talking about the schedule change, not the playoff change, but the schedule change was while we're moving it to May long weekend, it's going to be the
• 19:14
  season, season is going to start on May long weekend.
• 19:17
  No one knows when the season starts right now.
• 19:19
  No one knows when the CFL schedule started.
• 19:21
  Well, we used to before you moved it, it was always Canada Day and we planned on it and it was Canada Day.
• 19:28
  Now you guys have moved it all over so we don't know.
• 19:31
  Don't blame us.
• 19:33
  You made the decisions, not the fans.
• 19:36
  The fans used to know.
• 19:37
  We used to know there was a game on, started on Canada Day and it was the rematch of the Grey Cup and we loved it.
• 19:44
  Instead you've moved it all over the place.
• 19:47
  and we have no idea anymore and now you're telling us that we don't know where it is anymore and somehow that's our fault.
• 19:52
  crazy.
• 19:53
  It's crazy.
• 19:55
  It's yeah, and as someone else said, through all of this right back to the rule changes.
• 20:00
  They're fixing a bunch of problems that didn't exist instead of fixing the problems that do exist around promotion and getting fans out there and all the rest of it.
• 20:08
  I joked on Reddit yesterday, put up a tongue in cheek post and said, you know, if we're going to eight teams in the playoffs, why don't we go whole hog and go 10 teams?
• 20:17
  We'll just give the number nine team two.
• 20:20
  two entries in the playoffs because they're twice as likely to lose.
• 20:23
  And that got...
• 20:25
  that blew up.
• 20:27
  that the ninth team play in the Vanier Cup and whoever wins Vanier Cup gets to move up the league into the CFL next season and the loser gets to play in the U-sports league.
• 20:38
  well there have been lots of comments on Reddit on what I put up and people are saying that.
• 20:42
  Yeah, people are saying, well if we're gonna do this, yeah, let's do it like English soccer.
• 20:46
  Whoever's last place goes down to the junior league and the top junior team will come up.
• 20:52
  It makes as much sense as anything they're doing.
• 20:55
  I don't know.
• 20:56
  Does this roll into feelings?
• 20:57
  We have feelings, right?
• 20:59
  we have strong feelings and that's why I'm not getting into a rant because if I let go, I'm just, you won't stop me.
• 21:06
  I, I just, I think that respect is an incredibly important thing.
• 21:11
  It's one of my personal values and I just feel like I am now a fan of a team that does great stuff for me, but I feel like the league itself has no respect for me as a fan.
• 21:21
  I was thinking, the three of us, and it's not just the three of us, you're talking about podcasters carrying water for the CFL.
• 21:27
  This is free time, right?
• 21:30
  No one's getting paid here.
• 21:32
  We all love CFL football.
• 21:35
  We're spending time and energy and resources to talk about it.
• 21:41
  I think that's what just hurts, is that this is something we spend a lot of time on.
• 21:47
  Yeah.
• 21:48
  yeah, I'll mention right now, because I didn't know, as I said earlier, I didn't know where to bring it up, but it seems like the right place is that going in this offseason
• 21:57
  has been one of the strangest off seasons for me because there's some other things going on, but not that much that I've been distracted from football because it's kind of my
• 22:05
  primary focus, just, you know, because I'm retired.
• 22:09
  So what else do I have to do?
• 22:10
  And
• 22:10
  It's, but this off season, I've not felt the buzz.
• 22:14
  I just have not been as excited about the off season and going forward and looking forward to the season like I have been in the past.
• 22:23
  have a few of the people that I've been following, the newsmakers and other podcasters have not been as involved either.
• 22:28
  And maybe that's, that's taken away my involvement and my interest level and my engagement level, but
• 22:35
  It just was leading up to, I wasn't even that wound up about the draft in general, as I have been in the past, and just everything else about it.
• 22:45
  yet, and then this came out and it's like, yikes, here's why.
• 22:49
  It's just like, as you said, old man, they're not treating us with respect.
• 22:53
  And maybe it's just finally sinking in.
• 22:57
  And maybe it's just finally getting through my thick skull that, yeah, you shouldn't be as maybe as invested as you.
• 23:03
  have been and I've heard that from some other people since Tuesday.
• 23:08
  You know, so they're doing damage whether they like to whether they know it or not.
• 23:13
  They are doing damage.
• 23:14
  Yeah, I thought that what I saw across the social media that I actually take part in was there wasn't the anger at this, that there wasn't the rule changes.
• 23:25
  It was more just people just frankly being resigned to the fact that they're taking away more from our league.
• 23:34
  And if you're not angry, that means you're not as engaged.
• 23:37
  And I agree with you, you, JT, that that's what they're doing is that they're
• 23:42
  They're going to push these things through and then what do they do if in 2028 and 2029 their attendance is down 20, 30 % and the revenues are all down and it's too late to try
• 23:57
  and bring people back?
• 23:59
  Because that's my fear.
• 24:01
  If they implement all of this absolutely perfectly, maybe it can work out.
• 24:06
  But given how they've implemented stuff up till now, I have no faith.
• 24:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, again, I was always saying to someone as someone else was saying on yet another podcast on the I think it was Tony on Tony and Dalts and they and he
• 24:22
  was saying that on Rouge radio that they you know, he just said no matter it's almost like the US political and what Carney was saying about the world.
• 24:32
  The world has changed.
• 24:33
  We are never going back and we are no matter what you think.
• 24:37
  This is the end of the CFL as we have known it.
• 24:39
  And it is by 2029, you will not, this is not the league that you grew up with.
• 24:45
  It's not the league that your grandfather or your fathers grew up with.
• 24:48
  And it's not the league that we grew up with and it will not.
• 24:51
  And no matter what happens, it's not going back.
• 24:54
  So either we will have to get used to it and I will, I'll watch it for a while.
• 24:58
  We'll see whether I can get used to it, but it's never going back.
• 25:03
  The trust is broken.
• 25:04
  It is not the same.
• 25:06
  It is not going to be the Canadian Football League that we have all grown up watching.
• 25:12
  And it's just not going to be.
• 25:14
  ah It almost feels like the world as well.
• 25:18
  Not the same.
• 25:20
  I am also really I don't know if I should be disappointed but I actually really am disappointed with TSN with their put up and shut up mentality.
• 25:30
  Just because you're the broadcaster doesn't mean you just have to toe the line and I expected some not not criticism I don't know but I expected some like both sides of an
• 25:41
  issue I guess like I get my
• 25:44
  Do sports analysts have journalistic integrity?
• 25:46
  I just expected some instead of being like, this is the best thing ever, and you're going to love it as the party line.
• 25:52
  I was like,
• 25:52
  I expected better.
• 25:54
  Yeah, you expected journalism.
• 25:56
  I expected a little bit of journal, not a lot, but like a little bit would have been okay.
• 26:01
  It shouldn't be up to the podcasters.
• 26:05
  No.
• 26:05
  Well, I tell you what, let me finish off with a statement from the CFL Outsiders to the CFL on this and then we'll move on.
• 26:13
  If you disagree, you can tell me.
• 26:15
  But my statement to the CFL is this.
• 26:17
  OK, you know what you're doing.
• 26:19
  You're sure as this is going to be the best, most exciting football ever.
• 26:23
  Go ahead and entertain us because if you don't, you won't keep us.
• 26:27
  Exactly.
• 26:28
  So let's move on to some slightly better stuff here.
• 26:30
  A little bit of news.
• 26:32
  One thing I didn't put on the show rundown, so I'm going to kind of spring it on you, GT, is the Stamps new uniforms.
• 26:40
  What do you think?
• 26:40
  Um, they're okay.
• 26:43
  I think they're a little boring.
• 26:44
  They're a little bland.
• 26:45
  you know, I've said before, I'm not a big fan of, what's the word, complete look, red, white and white, you know, if they went white jerseys, red pants, red jerseys, white
• 26:56
  pants, I think it would look a lot better I'm not a fan of any team in a generic same color tops and bottoms.
• 27:03
  just,
• 27:03
  think it looks like pajamas versus when you split it up, looks like a uniform.
• 27:08
  A lot of people weren't fans of the previous iteration.
• 27:11
  I'm a big fan of the previous iteration.
• 27:14
  So, you know, I'm okay with it.
• 27:17
  It's not great.
• 27:18
  It's not the worst they've had.
• 27:20
  It's not anywhere near the best they've had.
• 27:22
  To me, the best uniforms were still the late seventies.
• 27:25
  Those were the best uniforms.
• 27:27
  the...
• 27:27
  But hey, I'll get my away sweater or my away jersey in the current iteration or the previous iteration.
• 27:33
  Now, last year's away jersey, I'll get it at half price on the stamp store now.
• 27:36
  So that's the best.
• 27:39
  Because I was too cheap to buy one at full price, so now I can buy one at half.
• 27:44
  There we go, yeah.
• 27:45
  And I got to agree with you about the solid color, especially when you're in whites.
• 27:49
  That just looks so bad.
• 27:51
  But I wasn't, unlike you, I wasn't a fan of the old ones.
• 27:55
  So when I heard they were going to put out new uniforms, I said, as long as they don't have the barber pole stripes on the shoulders, it's got to be better.
• 28:02
  And they don't.
• 28:03
  yeah, it's because of like, I'm a history guy.
• 28:07
  So the history of those stripes alone to me makes them all worthwhile.
• 28:11
  And if you don't get the history, then get over it's history.
• 28:15
  You have to keep that.
• 28:17
  And so, so I'm fine with them, but I'm also fine with moving on from them because they were done in a historical moment to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the team.
• 28:25
  So now we're five years past that.
• 28:27
  It is time to move on.
• 28:28
  get it.
• 28:29
  I'm okay.
• 28:30
  Okay.
• 28:32
  Any thoughts MJ from your fashion sense?
• 28:35
  well, so I like the white and red.
• 28:37
  I find that the shoulder, like the red triangles into this like weird point that's almost a little over their shoulder.
• 28:45
  So it looks kind of, but it's a fine VA looks good in it.
• 28:48
  That's what I know.
• 28:49
  Okay, I'll go back to sort of what the rundown, because again, I added this on when we talked in the pregame.
• 28:56
  Just to mention, there's been a few retirees or retirements and releases from teams after the draft.
• 29:04
  So I'll run through them quick and then we can talk about if they're significant or not.
• 29:08
  For Calgary, their backup PJ Walker has retired.
• 29:11
  For the Ottawa Red Blacks, Peter Godber their starting centre, has retired.
• 29:17
  For Saskia...
• 29:18
  and for Ottawa as well, they released Darius Bladock, who I thought was a fairly good offensive lineman.
• 29:24
  The Rough Riders had their last year's draft pick, one of their higher ones, Seth Huddenby, I believe it's pronounced, retired without joining the team.
• 29:33
  And I thought that was significant.
• 29:36
  I can talk about that in a bit.
• 29:38
  I don't think I've missed too much else with any releases or stuff that's that our names with most that you casual fans would notice.
• 29:47
  So any thoughts on any of that?
• 29:48
  Well, think they're all pretty significant.
• 29:50
  Calgary's PJ Walker, a lot of people are talking about because of course it is, he was much hype coming into the league only a year ago.
• 29:57
  But the Stapeders certainly knew this was happening because they couldn't contact him over the off season.
• 30:03
  They flat out said they hadn't heard from him.
• 30:05
  They didn't know what he was doing.
• 30:06
  They didn't know what his plans were.
• 30:07
  So they were planning on it.
• 30:09
  I think Love is going to be a very good backup quarterback.
• 30:13
  I'm not worried about them.
• 30:15
  They'll hopefully bring in a couple of guys, not a retread from Jake Doligala type or Shay Patterson type.
• 30:25
  think they'll hopefully bring in a couple of kids and actually develop somebody as a third string quarterback.
• 30:32
  So I'm not sure they weren't caught unaware.
• 30:35
  I wonder if
• 30:37
  if Ottawa was caught unawares in that case after just releasing Bladock, because I'm not sure they would have done that if they had known that Godber was going to retire the next
• 30:47
  day.
• 30:47
  So that one kind of was the surprise more than anything for me.
• 30:50
  And Saskatchewan, must be a little, shucks, that's too bad because they kind of penciled him in as a rotation guy at least this year.
• 30:58
  And after having very good reports coming out of
• 31:03
  coming out of last year's draft and going back to school.
• 31:06
  So he went to training camp, went back to school and then retired and never actually played for them.
• 31:10
  So that's unfortunate, I guess, for the riders.
• 31:13
  And it does weaken their Canadian content, which I thought was getting a little weaker to begin with.
• 31:19
  So because as we said, they were okay at the starting position, but they were losing those backups that they had, when last year they had all those really good backups.
• 31:29
  This year they looked a little weaker in their backups and now they look even weaker.
• 31:33
  Yes, and I thought Hundenby was key to them if they were going to try and keep their weak side linebackers a Canadian position after AJ Allen went off to Ottawa.
• 31:43
  And without him, I don't see that.
• 31:45
  So we'll see.
• 31:46
  See what happens with all of those.
• 31:48
  I don't think that I missed any, but those are sort of last minute news that we just picked up right today.
• 31:52
  I also wanted to mention, this is a few bits of
• 31:57
  the preseason news before we get into the draft.
• 32:00
  The writers, think probably everybody's heard by now, a couple of weeks ago released a Joe a Joe.
• 32:06
  And to me, this was significant because this was a kid that they got in the seventh round, all kinds of physical talent, just clicked with the fans.
• 32:15
  Everybody liked him, seemed great.
• 32:18
  And then started in the great cup last year, was probably penciled in to be a starter this year.
• 32:23
  And apparently at the post...
• 32:25
  CFL celebrations, he got a little sexually aggressive with some women, which is, should know, he should know better than anyway, but to the league's credit, it wasn't reported to
• 32:37
  the police or anything.
• 32:38
  It was reported to the riders.
• 32:39
  The league, uh, took, took a look at it, suspended him.
• 32:43
  I can't remember if it's four or six games and gave him a path back sort of like they did with, with Kelly on it.
• 32:50
  But the riders came out and said, no, we're releasing him and.
• 32:54
  When Jeremy O'Day was asked if we'd see him back in the CFL, his only answer was not with the riders.
• 32:59
  So I give full credit to the riders on that.
• 33:02
  That's it's good to see an organization I posted about it's a unicorn.
• 33:06
  It's a sports organization that puts their ethics above player talent.
• 33:11
  And so there's that anything either of you want to say on that at all?
• 33:15
  he had some trouble, he had a troubled past before he was even drafted, which is why he slipped down to the seventh round because he had the talent to be, to be much higher than
• 33:25
  that in last year's draft or two years ago.
• 33:27
  And people were surprised that he slipped to the seventh, but some people were surprised that he got drafted at all because of his off field antics before getting drafted.
• 33:36
  and what looked like a complete lackadaisical effort in his prep So it was only talent, but then his talent seemed to shine and he seemed to have it somewhat together.
• 33:46
  Had an NFL tryout, went down to the NFL last year and then came back to the Riders late.
• 33:51
  So yeah, unfortunately, some guys just don't get it.
• 33:55
  Some people just don't get it.
• 33:57
  Yeah, it wasn't just a tryout.
• 33:59
  He signed with the Colts and then got released at the end of training camp.
• 34:03
  So all kinds of talent.
• 34:04
  And yeah, I hate, I hate to see it, but it's just, yeah, the not quite maturity because like you said, there were a lot of questions, but from the effort standpoint and when he
• 34:13
  was doing it, practices and everything, it was all apparently great news, but you get a little too many wobbly pops in you.
• 34:20
  And if you don't have the maturity, it's not good.
• 34:23
  Along those same lines, news came out today about the Toronto Argonauts second global pick.
• 34:29
  Do either of you want to take a chance at the name?
• 34:31
  Because I can't pronounce it.
• 34:33
  It's on the rundown there if you've got it.
• 34:34
  Well, that's a Jovek Moko.
• 34:37
  Okay, him, first name Jordan.
• 34:40
  Apparently he's had a couple of accusations of domestic violence as well, there, so that he has to pass through the league before they'll say whether or not he can sign with the
• 34:54
  Argos or not.
• 34:55
  apparently...
• 34:57
  quite the little wrap sheet.
• 35:00
  It's not good.
• 35:01
  what I saw was they said the league knew about it but left them in the draft anyway and they were improving their their processes and
• 35:09
  what I saw was the league was aware of the past and they were going through the process.
• 35:18
  had let every team know that he may not be able to get signed.
• 35:24
  If you draft them, you may not get them.
• 35:26
  And the Argos drafted them anyway, which is the dumbest thing.
• 35:30
  it's not like Edmonton last year where they drafted the defensive lineman from Queens and then found out that he was on steroids.
• 35:37
  No, this was, you knew and you still drafted this guy?
• 35:40
  Why?
• 35:41
  Why would you do that?
• 35:42
  considering that organization, you think they would know better a year, two years later after going through what they went through and it's a global player.
• 35:52
  No offense, but it's not even like it's a
• 35:54
  top, first round Canadian pick.
• 35:56
  It's a global draft second overall.
• 35:59
  it was a first round global.
• 36:00
  But seriously, it's not the same.
• 36:03
  Why would you get yourself into a whole bunch of more hot water over somebody that's probably never going to play for you anyways?
• 36:10
  Like, all this showed me is that my Pinball Clemmons and company have learned no lessons.
• 36:15
  No lessons have been learned over at the Argos.
• 36:19
  Like, they are just gonna keep doing this kind of crap.
• 36:23
  And, like, I had, like, a couple friends who are, like, Argo fans, and they're embarrassed.
• 36:28
  Like, that's embarrassing.
• 36:30
  there isn't a team in the league where the optics would have been worse.
• 36:33
  You know, it is with their background.
• 36:36
  Okay.
• 36:37
  And they've got, and they put in this new team with Huffnagle and Barker and all these guys.
• 36:42
  So you would have thought these people should again, where is the person that puts up their hand and go, maybe we shouldn't do this?
• 36:51
  Somebody in that room has to put up their hand and go, maybe we shouldn't do this.
• 36:56
  I think they have too many organizational people without a leader anywhere.
• 37:03
  That's what it feels like to me.
• 37:05
  It's just allowed to run amok.
• 37:07
  But on to...
• 37:08
  Yes.
• 37:10
  Yeah.
• 37:11
  Yeah.
• 37:12
  Well, there is that part of it.
• 37:14
  It seems to me that it's the ethics of a team from 20 years ago.
• 37:19
  That's just me.
• 37:20
  Let's go on to something that's a little better.
• 37:22
  You MJ wanted us to talk about the Stamps, Elks Stamps game going to Clark Stadium.
• 37:27
  You sound seemed excited.
• 37:28
  Tell us about that.
• 37:29
  So, Canadian men's soccer is at Commonwealth on June 1st, so the Elks can't play there on the 29th.
• 37:36
  They're gonna shift over and run it old school at Clark Stadium.
• 37:40
  They're calling it Night at the Nod Hole, which I didn't understand.
• 37:44
  I think there's a joke there about how it used to be called.
• 37:46
  I don't know.
• 37:47
  It's like their whole thing.
• 37:49
  But...
• 37:49
  So Edmonton had a lot of snow this like last couple weeks.
• 37:55
  my the flag football fields and the soccer fields aren't open.
• 37:59
  So my kid got to play flag football at Clark Stadium and they have the CFL turf in.
• 38:06
  They have the goal posts in.
• 38:08
  They have the temporary stands up and he got to play on that turf so it was pretty exciting for him and it was fun for me too.
• 38:15
  uh
• 38:17
  But then I'm here sitting in the stands watching, was like, well maybe, maybe I do want to go to this game.
• 38:22
  Look how close I would be to the players.
• 38:25
  That'd be kind of fun, but the tickets are really expensive, so we'll see.
• 38:30
  Hmm, interesting.
• 38:32
  Interesting that they made that.
• 38:33
  hold very many people.
• 38:34
  I say temporary stands, I mean like maybe 75 people can fit in that temporary stand.
• 38:40
  They did put some into one of the end zones that did not have stands before.
• 38:44
  But no one's been playing on that.
• 38:46
  I think one of the college teams, like the McEwen, and I think some of them play, but no one's really been on that field since the FC Edmonton's, like the soccer team was there,
• 38:55
  and they folded a few years ago.
• 38:58
  pre-season you probably don't need a lot of seating anyway and if it's intimate that's interesting.
• 39:03
  I've said before I went to games when BC did their season or two with their relocation to P &E with the all temporary stadium and it was it was fantastic to be at a game with.
• 39:14
  will be closer to the players at Clark Stadium.
• 39:18
  Yep, I can't wait for the two BC games in Kelowna here.
• 39:22
  You want to talk about getting close to the players.
• 39:25
  I can't even figure out where they're going to set up the cameras at this stadium.
• 39:29
  there will only be one camera.
• 39:31
  There will only be one camera be shaky and you go out half black and then show nothing but crowd shots anyways.
• 39:37
  Oh, sorry, that's a Winnipeg
• 39:39
  Yeah.
• 39:39
  And then, and then, then you won't get the audio for half of it.
• 39:44
  They'll get better this year.
• 39:45
  Just like the brand new website for the new season.
• 39:48
  Have you noticed that?
• 39:49
  I haven't.
• 39:53
  we're, we're, being negative here.
• 39:57
  Big negative here.
• 39:58
  I, uh, next thing.
• 39:59
  ALC fans, it looks like it's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 40:01
  Hopefully not all the Calgary fans come up from Calgary for it, but it's gonna be an up-close, intimate, view of all the players and should be fun, that their locker rooms are
• 40:11
  right next to each other, they're gonna have to run through the stands to get out, it's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 40:16
  next thing I had and I don't know what this is about at all, GT, you said I had to put must love dogs on here.
• 40:21
  I can't believe that you don't know about this.
• 40:27
  This has been talked about for almost a year that this is on.
• 40:31
  This is the CBC Gem show featuring Brady Olivera and his partner, Alex, rescuing dogs.
• 40:41
  so the show is entitled Must Love Dogs.
• 40:44
  And so far, I think there's six episodes of 10.
• 40:48
  It's been interesting.
• 40:49
  They're like a half hour each.
• 40:51
  They've been focused all on around Winnipeg and Manitoba so far.
• 40:56
  They haven't done any of the exotic locales because I know he's gone down into I think the Philippines and in the Southeast Asia areas to rescue dogs down there as well.
• 41:06
  So I don't know if that'll make part of it.
• 41:08
  But they've also tied in a fair amount of the football and there's a lot of good shots of various games and stuff.
• 41:15
  and he's talking about his injury, his shoulder injury that he had last year and so on.
• 41:20
  So it's actually been pretty good.
• 41:22
  I'm hoping like some other well-received CBC gem shows like North of North and even the hockey thing, they end up getting picked up by American streams and somehow it makes it to
• 41:36
  a broader audience.
• 41:37
  That's my hope for it.
• 41:39
  And then that'll show, give.
• 41:41
  that gives them shine to the league and to the players.
• 41:44
  So that's the ultimate kind of thing from our point of view.
• 41:47
  But it's also interesting because it shows a completely different side of a player.
• 41:52
  Yeah, this shows probably about 50, 50 like them rescuing dogs and their 50 is Brady.
• 41:59
  He's at training camp, he's in the weight room, they have him shirtless a lot, getting massages and in the cold plunge and he wears glasses and I'm like, oh my goodness, Brady.
• 42:14
  He is arguably, let's just be honest, he is the most marketable person in the CFL.
• 42:19
  He is the best looking, one of the best looking men in the CFL.
• 42:23
  He's a genuinely lovely human.
• 42:25
  He's a hometown boy.
• 42:26
  They have a scene with him.
• 42:28
  They're at his mom's house for dinner.
• 42:30
  And his partner, Alex, is also really nice.
• 42:33
  They talk about how they met and they have five dogs that live with them.
• 42:38
  They had a party and a bunch of the players were there.
• 42:41
  It's a CFL marketing dream come true and I have not seen any CFL people talking about it.
• 42:48
  Yeah, I was very surprised.
• 42:50
  I was hoping that it would get more push from the CBC as well, which they haven't done in my mind a great deal about, but I don't watch regular CBC, so I only knew about it because
• 43:03
  I happen to know about it.
• 43:05
  But if you didn't, I'm not sure you would have got pushed through it.
• 43:09
  if you can run the tape because when we were talking about Brady where he was going I said that he was filming this show in Winnipeg and so he was staying.
• 43:21
  It's nice that they show Winnipeg in the summer.
• 43:23
  They have not shown any winter shots.
• 43:26
  Looks so nice there.
• 43:28
  I will say, I will say the one thing is, and I don't mean this in, well, I guess it is disparaging no matter how you put it, but it has not done a lot for Manitoba tourism.
• 43:41
  It's not exactly making, in my mind at least, an attractive push for, wow, look at how great this is.
• 43:48
  I think I'll go visit Manitoba or Winnipeg in particular.
• 43:52
  um Because it's focused on dogs in distress and the situations that they come from.
• 44:00
  So a lot of it tugs at your heartstrings.
• 44:03
  It really, really tugs at your heartstrings.
• 44:05
  And it makes you feel, I come away feeling sad from quite a few of the episodes just based on both the situation the dogs are in and the situation that the owners are in that their
• 44:15
  dogs end up in.
• 44:17
  So it's like, yeah, it's a little depressing at times in that way.
• 44:21
  that's why they have Brady shirtless in the cold plunge just to even it out.
• 44:28
  But Brady also, he's talking about his con, how his con, it's the beginning of the 2025 season so he's like, it's home Grey Cup, I'm so excited, we're going to the Grey Cup, my
• 44:39
  contract's gonna be up after every really good year and I'm like, oh no, Brady.
• 44:43
  And then they showed at the end of episode 6 they showed them winning, but it was against Ottawa.
• 44:48
  And I'm like, oh, well, yeah, I guess you had to show you winning a game.
• 44:52
  And of course it was against the Red Blacks.
• 44:54
  Yes.
• 44:55
  Well, I'm going to have to check that out.
• 44:58
  do pay the four bucks a month for, yeah, I pay the four bucks a month for CBC Gem, but until just recently I had to fire up an old laptop and plug it into the TV because it was
• 45:08
  the only way I could stream it.
• 45:10
  I've got a new streaming thing now.
• 45:12
  CBC Gem has an app on smart TVs now.
• 45:16
  Yeah.
• 45:16
  It's old enough to be a stupid TV, but I have the, I have the receiver and all the rest of that.
• 45:22
  Anyway, it doesn't give me Gem as an option, but I went out and got one of those Roku sticks for some of that.
• 45:28
  it.
• 45:29
  Yeah.
• 45:30
  cute, wholesome show.
• 45:33
  It's well done.
• 45:34
  And MJ is absolutely right.
• 45:36
  It's a CFL marketing dream.
• 45:39
  This is what they could have and should have been doing for other players and doing this in-house and putting it on their own website and licensing it out and doing it on TSN Plus
• 45:51
  or whatever.
• 45:52
  CBC or CFL Plus should be showing these type of things instead of just commercial breaks as we've talked about before.
• 45:59
  silence with music.
• 46:00
  It's like these are the basic things that they should be doing.
• 46:04
  could show Brady holding puppies.
• 46:07
  what's not to like ?
• 46:08
  You got Brady, you got football and you got rescue dogs.
• 46:12
  And I have a rescue pup who's out of Manitoba.
• 46:15
  So we'll sit down on the couch together and watch this.
• 46:19
  I don't think Brady rescued her, but you know, okay.
• 46:22
  Couple other quick things and we'll try to get to the save ourselves a bit of time for the draft.
• 46:27
  Justin Trudeau was seen sporting an alouettes hat at what was it?
• 46:30
  Coca, I can
• 46:32
  I'm not a uh culture guy.
• 46:34
  So that with with Katy Perry.
• 46:36
  that, that got the CFL news.
• 46:39
  okay.
• 46:40
  Yeah.
• 46:42
  Yes.
• 46:43
  And then one of you mentioned that apparently Mark Kearney had done something too, and I hadn't seen that.
• 46:48
  so Mark Carney, when he- it was like on Tuesday or something when he was gonna announce, he's like, economic updates coming, and he's showing a picture of him at his desk, you
• 46:55
  know, like, working hard.
• 46:56
  And in the back bookcase is a...
• 46:59
  Ementon double-E football helmet.
• 47:03
  And I was looking, I'm like, scroll and scroll, and I'm like, wait a minute!
• 47:08
  And I was like, so-
• 47:10
  Former and current PMs are doing more marketing for the CFL than the CFL is doing themselves.
• 47:17
  Well, it would make sense that he's an Edmonton fan, because he's from north of Edmonton up in the territories.
• 47:26
  Yeah.
• 47:27
  Yeah.
• 47:29
  Yes.
• 47:30
  Yeah, I will, this is not a political thing, but I will just say though, did you also see the video that came out with him and the Finnish prime minister playing hockey at a
• 47:39
  practice with the Ottawa junior team?
• 47:41
  It was the Ottawa Charge.
• 47:43
  Ottawa Charge was it?
• 47:44
  I, I, yeah.
• 47:48
  okay.
• 47:49
  okay.
• 47:49
  I didn't catch that part, but I will say that to me was whoever's doing the PR for him is just rocking it.
• 47:57
  That was such a subtle way to say, look at this.
• 48:00
  He is just a normal guy like this, but he also runs with world leaders every day.
• 48:05
  Okay.
• 48:05
  Elgersma sorry.
• 48:07
  You had something else MJ.
• 48:08
  no, I'm just saying, good job Justin and Mark.
• 48:12
  Thanks for the shout out for the CFL.
• 48:15
  I can remember back in the day, prime ministers used to be more fans of it seemed like, so hopefully we get that back.
• 48:23
  jumping on Taylor Elgersma Signed with the bombers after not being able to get a work visa down in the, what is it now?
• 48:29
  The UFL?
• 48:30
  I don't even know, but do you see that making a big difference this year?
• 48:36
  Absolutely.
• 48:37
  He's the de facto second string quarterback This is the guy they were waiting for they made the right choice last year and it paid off for them I mean waiting the two years it
• 48:47
  was more drama than it should have been because of the way he bounced around but But they knew this was going to happen when they drafted him last year and they were fully prepared
• 48:56
  for him to
• 48:57
  to wait a year or two or maybe even more if they had to.
• 49:01
  And this is absolutely going to pay off.
• 49:03
  If Zach Collaros gets injured this year in any way, or form, I am absolutely convinced Taylor Elgersma is going to be the number two guy.
• 49:12
  He's that good.
• 49:13
  He has more Canadian experience than the two guys that they brought in from the UFL.
• 49:17
  They're more experienced professionally, but he knows the game more.
• 49:22
  And he's probably a better quarterback than both of them.
• 49:25
  He's that good.
• 49:26
  He simply is.
• 49:27
  I've been watching this guy since he was a junior in Kitchener at Laurier.
• 49:31
  And uh so he's phenomenal, phenomenal.
• 49:35
  And he's the next, quite possibly the next young stud in this league between him, Davis, and
• 49:43
  in BC, we've got, yeah Nathan, we've got three studs already and if Curtis comes up next year for Saskatchewan, we'll have four.
• 49:53
  uh And then...
• 49:55
  they can undo the damage with Tray, they'll be five.
• 49:58
  Yeah, I'm not, see I'm a little past Trey, but I'm not sure he's a stud.
• 50:04
  I'm sure he's, I think he's a good quarterback.
• 50:07
  I'm not sure he's a stud.
• 50:09
  So, so the, used to think he was, I'm not sure he can ever get that, that back to that level.
• 50:16
  But anyways, I think that, yeah, it's, he's, Elgersma is, this was the best news Winnipeg could have in the off season.
• 50:24
  The best news they could have.
• 50:25
  Before he signed, I would have slotted Winnipeg into number 9 slot to miss the playoffs.
• 50:32
  I'm not convinced Zach's going to be able to play full season this year.
• 50:36
  But this changes the whole dynamic.
• 50:38
  Things are looking up in Bomber Town.
• 50:41
  Yes.
• 50:42
  And so again, I don't want to dwell on it.
• 50:44
  I agree with almost everything you say.
• 50:46
  I'll ask this though.
• 50:47
  If Zach has a season like he did last year, what are the chances that he gets that a healthy semi-health, that a playable Zach gets sat down and Elgersma gets a chance?
• 50:59
  Zero.
• 51:01
  Zero.
• 51:02
  I would say the same because of O'Shea and the way he's loyal to his players.
• 51:07
  and absolutely that makes sense.
• 51:08
  Elgram is not ready to take over the team, but he's absolutely ready to be the backup.
• 51:14
  And if they come out 0 and 6?
• 51:16
  yeah, I don't have any team being 0-6.
• 51:20
  Yeah, I agree.
• 51:21
  Be interesting.
• 51:23
  Alrighty, I think we're almost to the draft, but the last thing I had is that MJ, you wanted to talk a little bit of flag.
• 51:29
  pieces of flag football news.
• 51:31
  The first is the most exciting.
• 51:32
  There is from May 1st to 3rd in Winnipeg the men's team is having an open Invitational.
• 51:40
  So you're not too late.
• 51:42
  If get on a plane tonight you can...
• 51:45
  I'm still nursing the shoulder injury from two weeks ago playing with my grandson.
• 51:50
  That's, I'm still getting over that.
• 51:53
  I don't think I'm ready to go quite down to Winnipeg this weekend.
• 51:57
  Yes.
• 51:57
  And eh I was just going to say, and, as I mentioned to you earlier, I had my second knee replaced last February.
• 52:04
  So I figured that's the reason I didn't get picked in the draft.
• 52:07
  I don't know that the flag will want me after that.
• 52:11
  Well, if you two aren't going, there is a chance that he can't go to the open invitational, but there is a room out there that Paul Lapolice is very interested in
• 52:21
  Marc-Antoine De Qua going to the training camp in June.
• 52:27
  And Marc-Antoine De Qua is very interested in trying out and playing, so.
• 52:31
  a very good cover guy and if he's still got the speed, injuries can slow you down, if he was a burner, he'd be good.
• 52:39
  Yeah, so my last like not so fun flag football news and this is where I despair of the CFL and their nonsense.
• 52:47
  First of all, I'll talk about, I'll work my way down, this is two Alberta things, I'll talk about Edmonton and work my way down to Calgary, but in Edmonton this year, the Elks
• 52:55
  are no longer sponsoring the kids' flag football teams.
• 52:58
  I got my kids kit.
• 53:00
  Uniform I unpacked it all every year they've had an Elks or a double E logo and on the flag is a Elks logo and This year it is and then it has a powered by the Edmonton Elks on
• 53:11
  the back of the jersey this year None of that was on there.
• 53:14
  So and and they always have players come to this the Kickoff party no Elks there this year.
• 53:21
  So they are not sponsoring flight football in Edmonton secondly
• 53:25
  I don't think the Stampeters are either because the Arizona Cardinals just launched a flight football league in Calgary for kids.
• 53:33
  Where did I have it?
• 53:35
  They are from U6 to U16.
• 53:37
  There's going to be 700 kids playing.
• 53:39
  They are providing Cardinals uniforms and flags.
• 53:43
  The whole kit for them, they're going to have Cardinals former players and the mascot at games.
• 53:48
  What are we doing, CFL?
• 53:49
  What are we doing?
• 53:50
  Well, yeah, well, I think the the there was this thing.
• 53:55
  What was it to maybe two or three years ago?
• 53:58
  Might be three years ago where the NFL divided Canada up by team and said and gave teams exclusive rights to areas within Canada.
• 54:07
  So like Seattle took all of B.C.
• 54:10
  uh Bills took all of Ontario and maybe Arizona got Alberta.
• 54:16
  And that's why that's why.
• 54:17
  Because then they had the exclusive rights.
• 54:19
  for NFL to market and there's nothing really the CFL can do about it because it's not, it's competition but it's not intrusion.
• 54:27
  But they could certainly have been doing a better job and the Elks, unless they were forced to, should not have given up that.
• 54:34
  They just, yeah, that's just leaving yourself wide open.
• 54:37
  Yeah.
• 54:37
  Again, it's, it seems like they're willing to do everything they can to make money, including all this stuff we talked about earlier.
• 54:45
  And last in the playoffs last season, suddenly turning the uniforms into soccer style uniforms with mobile advertising on them and everything.
• 54:53
  They're doing all this and they're spending nothing on promoting the league.
• 54:56
  So it's, I don't know if it's, if they see it as a
• 55:00
  You know, make what we can, well, we can.
• 55:02
  I'm not going to get negative any, well, I will, but That's, that's just about it.
• 55:07
  We did talk a little bit in the, before the show about how we were feeling in the off season in general.
• 55:13
  think we've got a lot of those comments out of the way already.
• 55:15
  Anybody got anything else that they want to add about the off season before we get to the draft?
• 55:20
  I did want to talk about quickly about the podcasters stepping up and there was a comment made MJ that you said well are we the only one that didn't have players on I think the
• 55:29
  podcasting community has done a terrific job I was really impressed with how Two and out has stepped up and done a lot of interviews three down has done a lot of player interviews
• 55:40
  Now, I had to laugh because, of course, Three Down did the regular pandering and every interview had something to do with Saskatchewan.
• 55:46
  even if they weren't on that team, somehow brought in the Riders into it.
• 55:49
  But I am sort of, I have been impressed with several of the other podcasts.
• 55:55
  And I think the podcast community has done a really good job over the,
• 55:59
  offseason of keeping the drive alive so to speak and highlighting a lot of things and doing even like they to and out did an emergency podcast live on Tuesday night post the
• 56:12
  announcements just to talk about the announcements.
• 56:14
  I think that's great.
• 56:15
  I think the guys in Montreal on the flight deck have done interviews with two draft prospects before they got drafted no matter whether they were going to the Alouettes or
• 56:26
  not just two random guys that they
• 56:28
  that they wanted to talk to.
• 56:30
  I think that's terrific to highlight upcoming players.
• 56:33
  So yeah, I really think the podcast community deserves some acknowledgement on the job that we've all done in, keeping the spirit and keeping it going when media generally has
• 56:43
  dropped off considerably across the country.
• 56:46
  Yeah, I'd have to agree with that.
• 56:48
  I mean, three down, it's their job.
• 56:50
  Then they're owned by Harvard Communications now, so that you can expect a lot more Ryder stuff, because Harvard is the official broadcaster of the Riders But the rest of this is
• 57:00
  all fans doing it.
• 57:01
  And again, applause to...
• 57:03
  I agree with you.
• 57:04
  People have really stepped up their game.
• 57:06
  It's part of what's keeping me enjoying the offseason with everything else that's there.
• 57:10
  could I bring up one more thing before I forget about it?
• 57:13
  Cause it just came into my brain.
• 57:16
  is the CFL fans fight cancer, which I know I'm a big fan of.
• 57:21
  And I believe both of you are as well.
• 57:22
  And we had some fun with last year and we still are going to announce how we're going to have a little bit more fun this year, but they are, they have been unbelievable of the
• 57:31
  stuff that they've put together.
• 57:32
  And if you haven't heard about it, it's incredible.
• 57:35
  Every, every game ticket that you buy to the Stampeders this year,
• 57:39
  A portion of the ticket cost will go back to CFL fans by cancer.
• 57:48
  If you want to come into town, if you want to go to hotels and go to an out of town game and you want to stay in Regina, there's a bunch of hotels that would give you a discount
• 57:59
  if you use the CFL fans by cancer code with them.
• 58:03
  They've got so much stuff going on.
• 58:06
  It's really, really impressive how well that's been driving and how big it's getting as well.
• 58:11
  So kudos to them and for everything that they're doing as well.
• 58:14
  I haven't checked the website in the last month or two.
• 58:17
  like you said, JT, a little bit less engaged this year, but I believe it should still be CFLFansFightCancer.com.
• 58:27
  And I imagine they've got a lot of this stuff on there.
• 58:29
  So I'm going to have to look at it again.
• 58:31
  They do an excellent job.
• 58:34
  All right.
• 58:34
  So that sort of brings us to the draft and which hopefully we'll get a good discussion on.
• 58:41
  Full disclosure, I'm able to yeah, reasonably about what the riders did, but I have, as we've been talking about, I've been less engaged and I still can't believe that the CFL
• 58:57
  does not find a way to at least stream the combine, because that gives me a chance and other fans a chance to get engaged.
• 59:04
  When they don't bother doing that and don't put any effort into it, it makes it very hard for me.
• 59:08
  So I can...
• 59:09
  Talk about that, I can talk about a little bit of the general comments that I've heard but I won't be able to talk intelligently about what every team did.
• 59:19
  So, we'll maybe take it that way.
• 59:21
  I believe MJ, you're sort of in the same boat as me.
• 59:24
  I was like joking that I know two things about the draft.
• 59:27
  Who got picked first and that the app and that the the CFL tracker crashed.
• 59:35
  I was gonna try to pay attention this year.
• 59:37
  I was.
• 59:38
  I was like okay I'm gonna pay attention this year because I'm gonna podcast and then things happened.
• 59:44
  Well, I'm told I didn't catch it, but I'm told JC Abbott did an excellent draft show even with the tracker having crashed with three down there.
• 59:53
  And how, whereabouts are you in the whole process, GT?
• 59:56
  How much can you talk about?
• 59:58
  A fair amount.
• 1:00:00
  I mean, I'm a draft nerd, but I'm not a J.C.
• 1:00:04
  Abbott by any means.
• 1:00:05
  I pick up a lot of stuff over listening to people like him and a couple of other guys that I really used to like that, unfortunately, lives got in their way of their football
• 1:00:16
  podcasting this year too.
• 1:00:18
  they did not do, but they would list out typically and give you a complete rundown of a hundred different players that were eligible.
• 1:00:25
  And those guys were great.
• 1:00:26
  And unfortunately, they're just weren't there.
• 1:00:29
  So that didn't help drive it.
• 1:00:30
  So I was the last again involved, but I still managed to pick up, the most of the information in advance and had done a mock of at least the first two rounds and kind of
• 1:00:40
  was making some decisions on who I wanted the Stampeders to draft.
• 1:00:44
  by position, went through each team and looked at their areas of weakness on the roster, current roster, which I thought they needed, you know, so who would they draft at least by
• 1:00:53
  position and you know, that kind of, guess that's in the weeds.
• 1:00:57
  don't know.
• 1:00:58
  It keeps me busy.
• 1:01:03
  Not even, not even, not even, not even.
• 1:01:07
  So, so yeah, I,
• 1:01:09
  I got some of the positional guys right, not even the, yeah, not where they went.
• 1:01:15
  And a few, and even some of the guys like JC Abbott were saying, yeah, there's a couple of picks here that came completely off the wall, completely off the wall.
• 1:01:24
  So you can't always predict.
• 1:01:27
  But I did, but I did rank.
• 1:01:29
  I do have what I think are my rankings of not the winners and the losers in the draft because
• 1:01:34
  uh Because you don't know that for two, three, four years before you understand how good these players can be.
• 1:01:41
  But I did go through and list out the main players that each team drafted and to review those quickly.
• 1:01:48
  And then where I think I position the teams as to how well a job they did based on, you know, the needs and what general input from other sources post draft.
• 1:01:59
  So I have mine if you want to spend a few minutes going.
• 1:02:03
  Okay.
• 1:02:03
  Well, let's do that.
• 1:02:04
  Let's let you do a monologue here.
• 1:02:06
  And if either of us gets inspired with questions or thoughts, we'll jump in.
• 1:02:11
  Otherwise, here's GT on the draft.
• 1:02:14
  All right, no problem.
• 1:02:15
  So the draft in general this year, as I said, I wasn't as invested, but and that may have made me feel this way a bit more, but I also wasn't as invested because it felt like this
• 1:02:24
  draft, they kept saying it's the one of the most talented drafts through the first three rounds we've had in quite a while, but there didn't feel like there was any standout
• 1:02:34
  players.
• 1:02:34
  There was no Phil Potts you were waiting for.
• 1:02:37
  There was no Trey Ford.
• 1:02:39
  You were waiting to see who got where he got drafted.
• 1:02:41
  There was
• 1:02:42
  just none of that number one, two, three, four guys that you were just waiting for.
• 1:02:47
  It was more like, okay, who's going to go where more than that.
• 1:02:50
  So that meant somehow I wasn't feeling as excited about the draft in general.
• 1:02:57
  Then later on after the combine, a few names picked up and I thought, okay, now I'm kind of invested in those guys.
• 1:03:04
  So I want to see where they end up.
• 1:03:06
  Ottawa went number one and picked GIORDANO VACCARO the offensive lineman who finished at Purdue last year, but is really four years at University of Manitoba.
• 1:03:15
  He's a Winnipeg kid, grew up there, was the best O lineman in Canada West a couple of years in a row before going down to the U.S.
• 1:03:24
  and is going to be a stud.
• 1:03:26
  He's going to be a stud for them for sure.
• 1:03:28
  And he had a 300 person draft party that looked like something from US college or the NFL.
• 1:03:33
  It was crazy.
• 1:03:34
  was this big tent full of his family and friends.
• 1:03:36
  was terrific to see.
• 1:03:38
  And it should have been more than it was when like better publicized and they should have had a more made a bigger deal of it than a couple of seconds that TSN gave them really.
• 1:03:48
  So they did really well there.
• 1:03:50
  They also picked another guy, Rene Konga.
• 1:03:55
  a defensive lineman who's a futures guy.
• 1:03:57
  He's got an NFL contract or at least a tryout.
• 1:04:01
  And so they did okay.
• 1:04:03
  And then they got five other guys.
• 1:04:04
  And that's basically how I'm going to do it.
• 1:04:06
  Here's the key players, and then they got five other guys.
• 1:04:09
  So because most of these players are going to either be special teams players in two or three years, or they're going to end up not making it in the league in two or three years.
• 1:04:17
  That's the way the draft works for us.
• 1:04:20
  So, Winnipeg, or I should say Ottawa went number one, or went from east to west, will go east to west.
• 1:04:26
  Montreal, they went with Rohan Jones, who's already signed down with Las Vegas.
• 1:04:31
  So, a futures player is right off the top.
• 1:04:34
  And then, Seven Guys, was their very strange draft.
• 1:04:37
  Everybody is saying that's a very strange draft by Montreal.
• 1:04:41
  And they also drafted a kicker when they've got
• 1:04:45
  Maltos and and Zima so they don't need a kicker.
• 1:04:49
  So why did they draft a kicker?
• 1:04:50
  It was very strange that they did that.
• 1:04:52
  That was one of the weird things.
• 1:04:54
  Toronto had the probably one of the up-and-comers and Nicholas Henning as an offensive lineman out of Queens.
• 1:05:01
  One of the guys I wanted to get and I had mocked at five so I thought we might.
• 1:05:06
  But yeah, he went number two overall and he's going to be a very good player.
• 1:05:10
  Then they went really weird and drafted
• 1:05:14
  all over the darn place.
• 1:05:15
  it's not, it's hard to tell, but they did pick up a receiver and they did pick up a linebacker where they're weak in Canadians in both of those positions.
• 1:05:23
  So that was okay.
• 1:05:25
  And they also drafted a kicker Hamilton for you, MJ, they got an offensive lineman with their first pick who's had both knees done already in his first and second years.
• 1:05:36
  So he's, so yeah, if he, if, but he swears his knees are now that they're done.
• 1:05:41
  are better than they were before.
• 1:05:44
  So, yeah, exactly.
• 1:05:46
  So if he's very good, if he can play, could be a very good player for them.
• 1:05:52
  If he's not injured, if he's not, he could be a very good player for them.
• 1:05:55
  They also got a terrific receiver in Malik Mega, one of the best rated receivers in the draft.
• 1:06:00
  So that's good news because they needed to replace O'Leary Orange and the Canadian depth there.
• 1:06:05
  So that's good.
• 1:06:06
  And then six guys.
• 1:06:08
  we'll go.
• 1:06:08
  there.
• 1:06:09
  So that's the East pretty much.
• 1:06:11
  Winnipeg picked a defensive lineman, Nuer Gatkuoth, who's a futures as well, because again, has a free agent walk on in the NFL.
• 1:06:19
  Then they went off the board and made a trade up to take the 10th overall pick, got Ottawa's first pick in the second round from Ottawa for a 13th for their pick.
• 1:06:30
  So they traded up three spots, plus gave up a second in next year's draft to draft
• 1:06:36
  Dante Daniels, a tight end, who's just massive, but he's a futures pick as well.
• 1:06:41
  He's got to try out down the NFL as well.
• 1:06:43
  He probably will be in Winnipeg eventually maybe a year or two, but at the most, maybe even this year.
• 1:06:49
  But it just seemed like a weird pick.
• 1:06:52
  Everybody was like, huh, why would you have gone, why would you have done that?
• 1:06:55
  It doesn't feel like a Winnipeg pick, but they're excited by him, apparently.
• 1:07:00
  Then they picked up, they also drafted a kicker, another team.
• 1:07:05
  for all the talk about global kickers, three teams have already drafted Canadian kickers.
• 1:07:10
  Toronto had the most draft picks, by the way.
• 1:07:12
  They had 11.
• 1:07:12
  So they, and they still had the strangest, one of the strangest drafts.
• 1:07:17
  Saskatchewan, for you guys, they picked up Malcolm Bell as a DB out of Michigan.
• 1:07:22
  Looks like a good pick and they seem to be building up that Canadian backfield with Sutherland.
• 1:07:28
  No, not Sutherland.
• 1:07:30
  That's in Montreal.
• 1:07:31
  Who's the safety that came back last year from the NFL?
• 1:07:36
  not safety, the coroner, Trayvon Campbell.
• 1:07:40
  Campbell, isn't it?
• 1:07:41
  Yeah.
• 1:07:41
  they're building behind him.
• 1:07:43
  uh And then they picked up two, what I believe two offensive linemen, Darius Bell and Albert Reese.
• 1:07:51
  Both of them are futures.
• 1:07:53
  Both of them have NFL, at least mini camp tryouts.
• 1:07:56
  And then they picked five other guys, including one receiver.
• 1:08:00
  So they, you know, because with Ajou Ajou leaving, they do need some depth that receiver for sure.
• 1:08:06
  they did get at least one receiver.
• 1:08:08
  If I, if I can just jump in on that.
• 1:08:10
  Yeah.
• 1:08:11
  I think that's why they, they, they actually picked up, I believe it was two receivers, but the earth, well, and the tight end, but the other ones were like seven and eight.
• 1:08:18
  So they took a receiver in the second round, which I think was directly because of Ajou Ajou which surprised me.
• 1:08:24
  I have heard that Darius bell, if he gets up here is as on the old line, which was their third round pick is, is pro ready.
• 1:08:32
  So he might be able to plug in and help this year, but I also have heard that.
• 1:08:36
  their number one pick Malcolm Bell also has a mini camp try out So will he be up here or not?
• 1:08:44
  That's all I got.
• 1:08:44
  of them, yeah.
• 1:08:45
  Most of the mini camp guys, can count on being here with the guys that are actually get contracts that are a little riskier.
• 1:08:52
  Calgary picked up, Eric Roscoe as a linebacker, I was, I was quite happy with the Calgary draft, cause they got a linebacker right off the top.
• 1:09:00
  not
• 1:09:01
  the guy I wanted, but still a really, really good linebacker who positionally might actually fit the team better than the guy I wanted.
• 1:09:09
  They also got the best special teams receiver and possibly the best special teams guy in the draft in the third round, which was great.
• 1:09:18
  Ojutalayo is his last name, another one that's hard to pronounce and you just have to look at it and you'll figure it out.
• 1:09:26
  They also got one of the darlings of the combine in Matt Sibley, a receiver, which seems odd that they added more receivers considering their Canadian receiving corps is pretty
• 1:09:35
  solid.
• 1:09:36
  But they then got four more guys, two of which are O-line and two of which are D-line.
• 1:09:40
  They needed D-line too, so to me that's always good.
• 1:09:43
  Edmonton picked up the linebacker that I wanted, the Dariel Djabome They got Wesley Bailey, a D-line, that's a futures guy.
• 1:09:52
  They got Justin Pace, a linebacker from Queens who's a really smoking hard linebacker.
• 1:09:57
  So they've really filling in the linebacker position.
• 1:10:00
  And then they got, they got Carter Kettyle, oh a receiver out of U of A, which is also, he's a very smooth route runner.
• 1:10:07
  So he's going to, could be a guy because they need Canadian receiving receivers in Edmonton.
• 1:10:11
  So he could be a player you hear about if not this year, then in a couple of years.
• 1:10:15
  And they also got Eli, Elo, it's Eloa I believe.
• 1:10:20
  Latendresse-Regimbald, out of Montreal.
• 1:10:23
  He plays quarterback for McGill, but he's already said he's willing and able to convert to a receiver.
• 1:10:29
  People are talking about him as the next Brad Sinopoli or better.
• 1:10:33
  So yeah.
• 1:10:35
  who was working at McGill and they say, they're posting on Reddit today that they saw him doing receiver drills.
• 1:10:41
  He was running back kicks at the combine.
• 1:10:44
  He was willing to do anything.
• 1:10:46
  So yeah, he's going to be a player.
• 1:10:48
  He's going to be a guy.
• 1:10:49
  And then in BC, they got the number one receiver in the draft, the number one receiver on everybody's board Nat Montanague.
• 1:10:59
  Then they picked up Nick Cenacle, who's a receiver from Hawaii out of Montreal and is really good.
• 1:11:05
  People were a little disappointed, so he slipped, but they were able to get him.
• 1:11:09
  If he can actually get back to what he shows on tape, they could replenish their Canadian receivers, and they'd need it in BC.
• 1:11:18
  And they also picked up Jett Elad, who was really highly rated as a DB.
• 1:11:22
  So in rankings, Edmonton is number one.
• 1:11:26
  BC is number two.
• 1:11:28
  Calgary is number three.
• 1:11:29
  Who did I go next?
• 1:11:31
  Where's number four?
• 1:11:32
  Hamilton is number four.
• 1:11:34
  Winnipeg is number five.
• 1:11:36
  Saskatchewan is number six.
• 1:11:40
  Ottawa is number seven.
• 1:11:42
  Toronto is number eight and Montreal is number nine.
• 1:11:44
  That's how I just put them in order.
• 1:11:46
  It's only my own personal feelings, but that's sort of how I figured they went.
• 1:11:52
  I think it was a good draft.
• 1:11:53
  As I said, it just didn't seem to have the star power.
• 1:11:57
  that some of the other drafts.
• 1:11:59
  to me, the draft is the second most important part of the year because it is the future stars.
• 1:12:06
  It is the players.
• 1:12:07
  The players are what keeps this league alive.
• 1:12:09
  If it's not for the players, we don't have a league.
• 1:12:12
  So to me, I'm always interested in the process of the players and seeing where they come from and where they get to.
• 1:12:20
  And I kind of like to follow them.
• 1:12:22
  That's also why I love going to preseason games because I like seeing 90 guys and then figuring out who the 40 are that are going to end up.
• 1:12:29
  So, yeah.
• 1:12:29
  been really nice.
• 1:12:31
  I got Instagram this week.
• 1:12:32
  There was a lot of players posting little videos and stuff about their draft days and how they felt and what, you know, all their feelings about it and how it went.
• 1:12:42
  So it was really interesting to see like players who are like stars in our league now talk about their draft days.
• 1:12:47
  Yeah, and see again, more of that.
• 1:12:50
  Easy promotion.
• 1:12:51
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:12:53
  The next Saturday in Kitchener, is the East West game, which is the preamble game for next year's eligible players.
• 1:13:02
  So the players that are eligible for next year's draft have the East West Bowl where they all get to show off in front of all the scouts and everything else and the scouts start
• 1:13:12
  working for towards next year.
• 1:13:13
  If the weather holds and if I have any luck, I'm going to get out to that game and then maybe I'll have a quick couple of things that I can post about.
• 1:13:20
  the teams in the bottom half of the league, look to me like we need people that can play, if not day one, by a third of the way through the season.
• 1:13:28
  you're hoping that you get one guy out of the draft that is going to be a contributor year one.
• 1:13:34
  If you do that, you're doing okay.
• 1:13:36
  If you get two, you're doing well beyond that, which is why Calgary's draft last year was so outstanding because they actually ended up with four players playing all year around
• 1:13:46
  and starting all year for them.
• 1:13:49
  It was tremendous.
• 1:13:51
  And which is why this year they only had a couple of positions they needed to fill.
• 1:13:56
  especially linebacker and they were able to do that so so I'm quite happy quite happy teams like Montreal and Saskatchewan yeah they just have to pick the best player available
• 1:14:04
  they don't need any one specific one specific position
• 1:14:09
  Yeah, and they can afford to take a shot on a futures guy to me, Calgary, like I said, I haven't really looked at the players they got, but they were sort of in between those two
• 1:14:20
  positions because their starting team last year was fantastic.
• 1:14:25
  Where the problems came was as it started to get into the depth.
• 1:14:28
  So I would hope that that's what they were stocking up on now.
• 1:14:32
  And it looked, and just sort of looking at, you know, there's
• 1:14:35
  O lineman D lineman receivers linebackers.
• 1:14:38
  So they looks like they've done a good job of stocking up talent for if they need it.
• 1:14:44
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:46
  And then there's a bunch of guys that didn't get drafted that will still get invitations to training camps in the next week.
• 1:14:51
  So there's still a bunch of other guys that may show up at training camps.
• 1:14:56
  Yeah.
• 1:14:57
  Well, and you mentioned also, sorry, jump in anytime you want to MJ.
• 1:15:01
  Don't mean for us to dominate this.
• 1:15:03
  You mentioned three teams pick kickers.
• 1:15:06
  And I'm wondering if what's behind that is the fact that there are global players that are, starting to get that are better at other positions besides kickers.
• 1:15:16
  And you can only play two globals.
• 1:15:18
  And I didn't know this.
• 1:15:19
  This is something I learned from Three Down Nation.
• 1:15:21
  I think last week on their podcast, they talked about the fact that
• 1:15:25
  The original idea was you'd have to have two global players on the roster.
• 1:15:28
  If you had any more than that, that were good, you could play them as Americans.
• 1:15:33
  Then the CFLPA came back and said, no, no, no, you can't do that.
• 1:15:36
  Americans have to be from America.
• 1:15:38
  So you can, if you have three good global players now, one of them can't be on the roster.
• 1:15:43
  And so I'm thinking that maybe, we've started to see like Baldonero who went from Saskatchewan.
• 1:15:49
  I think he went to Ottawa.
• 1:15:50
  was very good global there.
• 1:15:53
  Lots of teams have their kicker and their punter as their global players.
• 1:15:56
  If they've now got a global who's showing promise somewhere else, maybe that's why they're going back to drafting Canadian kickers.
• 1:16:03
  Yeah, it could well be.
• 1:16:05
  there's also, you know, and people are also trying to get ready for the move, you know, for the move of the goalpost as well.
• 1:16:12
  So they're looking at younger kickers with stronger legs too.
• 1:16:15
  So that's part of it.
• 1:16:17
  is a kicker heavy draft because when the goal post moved, you're gonna need to replace people like Sean White, Rene Paredes, Louis Ward.
• 1:16:25
  You're gonna have to be able to kick from 60 pretty consistently.
• 1:16:30
  Yes.
• 1:16:31
  Well, and that's something we didn't talk about.
• 1:16:32
  Ottawa released Lewis Ward and brought in Brett Lauther there from Saskatchewan, who had a worse statistical season than Ward did last year.
• 1:16:41
  But what I read about it was it was all about the leg power that with him.
• 1:16:46
  They were getting something like 12 yards longer on the kickoffs, not even on the, they're not looking field goals on the kickoffs.
• 1:16:53
  His average is 12 yards longer than Ward and they felt that was important enough to make the change.
• 1:16:58
  Oh, those poor Ottawa fans.
• 1:17:00
  Looks like their favorite player.
• 1:17:04
  Oh, tough day.
• 1:17:05
  It was a tough day.
• 1:17:07
  And, and who knows with Lauther I mean, kickers come and go in this league, sometimes they disappear for a bit and then come back and are better than ever.
• 1:17:15
  And I'm told he was suffering with a bad back for last season and part of the previous one, but you know, maybe that's still there.
• 1:17:23
  Who knows.
• 1:17:23
  Yeah, again, it's interesting.
• 1:17:25
  don't know.
• 1:17:26
  the day or what within a week after signing anyways, it was within a week.
• 1:17:29
  They immediately had the story that he, yeah, but I'll be a Rider forever.
• 1:17:33
  And I'm going to reach when I retire, I'm going to retire.
• 1:17:36
  I'm like, really?
• 1:17:37
  What does that say to Ottawa?
• 1:17:38
  I mean, what is that?
• 1:17:39
  Like if you just like, if Ottawa just don't dished out the dough and cut their long-term guy and then here's this other guy come in and says, yeah, I don't care about you.
• 1:17:47
  You know, oh I'm here for the
• 1:17:50
  for you, but like, I don't care.
• 1:17:52
  I'm not.
• 1:17:53
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:55
  Now, the other question is, was that an honest statement from Brett or does he still live in Regina and not want to make sure things go well?
• 1:18:05
  We do know the famous story of Paul McCallum.
• 1:18:08
  Yeah.
• 1:18:09
  Well, I wish I had more on the draft.
• 1:18:12
  I don't any...
• 1:18:14
  well, head over to 3Downation where they've done all draft analysis for us.
• 1:18:21
  Which is great!
• 1:18:22
  I, yes, exactly.
• 1:18:24
  They have done a fantastic job.
• 1:18:25
  I'll you that.
• 1:18:27
  And on my other screen here, as you've been going through it, GT, I've been looking at who they've got, say, in their article about who's where, not, not one of the ones that ranks
• 1:18:36
  them and all, but just the picks themselves.
• 1:18:38
  So three down, I've got to say, despite the fact that, they can be a little heavy on the rider side with the Harvard connection.
• 1:18:45
  They have really stepped up their game, not just their podcast, but their website.
• 1:18:50
  the information they're putting out there.
• 1:18:52
  It is far better than anything the league does.
• 1:18:55
  I can remember three or four years ago, I hardly ever looked at Three Down Nation and I went to the CFL.ca for everything.
• 1:19:01
  Now I barely look at CFL.ca and Three Down's on top of it.
• 1:19:06
  Yes, CFL.ca is puff pieces.
• 1:19:10
  It's not news.
• 1:19:11
  It's puff pieces and it's press releases.
• 1:19:13
  That's all it is.
• 1:19:15
  Three Down is actual reporting and actual breaking stories and journalism.
• 1:19:20
  I like Three Down and I get a lot of information from them Again, I just give them grief because they deserve it.
• 1:19:27
  Well, yeah.
• 1:19:29
  because they deserve it because they are so obviously slanted.
• 1:19:33
  So, whatever.
• 1:19:33
  Exactly, it's fan-type grief.
• 1:19:36
  know, it's not real hatred, it's just a lot of cases it's envy.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, and I'm sure they could make fun of me too.
• 1:19:44
  So there you go.
• 1:19:45
  Yeah, well hey, if they start making fun of you, you've arrived.
• 1:19:49
  So let's hope that happens.
• 1:19:51
  100%.
• 1:19:52
  Yes, no, I get it.
• 1:19:54
  That's why so many of us Saskatchewan folks hated the Stampeders for so many years.
• 1:19:59
  We really just wanted to be them.
• 1:20:01
  Ha
• 1:20:02
  Anyway, I think that brings us to everything we've got here.
• 1:20:05
  We're an hour and a half, which is kind of short for us, but that's okay.
• 1:20:08
  I'll let you guys do yours closing thoughts.
• 1:20:10
  If you want to put out any social media for people to follow you on, and then I'll sort of do a wrap up closing here.
• 1:20:16
  All Well, my closing thought is, we are a week and a half away from training camp.
• 1:20:21
  are two weeks Sunday or two weeks Monday, Victoria day.
• 1:20:25
  Doesn't start the season, but starts the preseason.
• 1:20:28
  We're close.
• 1:20:29
  We're here.
• 1:20:30
  If you know, thank you to both of you for helping me get through those doldrums that I said I had earlier.
• 1:20:36
  I'm now a little more excited than I was at the beginning of this podcast.
• 1:20:40
  I hopefully we're going to be getting more, know, we're
• 1:20:42
  It's going to get more exciting as we go through the season and we're going to have some more fun and we're going to have continue, you know, to, to enjoy this league that we've
• 1:20:51
  loved for so long.
• 1:20:52
  And, uh, yeah, thank you for bringing me back.
• 1:20:54
  Happy to have you here, MJ.
• 1:20:57
  Oh, well, thank you for the reminder that we're so close to preseason.
• 1:21:00
  just, I don't know, I'm kind of in this weird vortex of spring, right?
• 1:21:04
  So I'm going to start to, I guess, start looking up team lists and get organized.
• 1:21:10
  But I am, you're right, I am a little more excited now that we've talked about it.
• 1:21:14
  So thank you to you both.
• 1:21:16
  If you also enjoy despairing about the Blue Jays, as well as preseason football, find me over on Blue Sky at Sports and Plants.
• 1:21:26
  get me started, baseball.
• 1:21:28
  Yes.
• 1:21:28
  Okay.
• 1:21:29
  And well, just to wrap up for all you folks that are out there watching or listening our plans going ahead.
• 1:21:36
  The preseason starts the first preseason game.
• 1:21:41
  I can't even remember the date, but it's the, I believe a Sunday game between Saskatchewan and Calgary.
• 1:21:47
  The only game as they've done the last couple of years.
• 1:21:50
  So we'll start the week after that with our full season.
• 1:21:55
  No more off season and bonuses and stuff.
• 1:21:58
  This will be our full season.
• 1:21:59
  You'll get us weekly after that.
• 1:22:01
  Let us know what you think, please.
• 1:22:03
  And if you haven't subscribed yet on YouTube, please subscribe.
• 1:22:08
  Make sure that you put your notifications on so you don't miss anything with it.
• 1:22:11
  You'll also find we're doing some other stuff this year.
• 1:22:15
  In the off season, the last one of these we did, GT did an interview with somebody about the CFL NFL fandom
• 1:22:21
  He's probably going to do more of that.
• 1:22:22
  Not so much players or coaches, maybe some of that, but more people that you wouldn't hear from on the other podcasts.
• 1:22:29
  So maybe some local high school coaches or somebody involved somehow else.
• 1:22:33
  And we'll put those out as some bonuses, I've started on YouTube, some little two or three minute comment videos.
• 1:22:39
  I'll probably put more of those up.
• 1:22:41
  I've been, I floated the idea with the other folks here, so we'll see if we get them out there with it.
• 1:22:47
  Then we'll have the full, our full shows for the season.
• 1:22:49
  And once we get into whatever fantasy is going to be this year, which I still don't know, we'll have a fantasy show on that too.
• 1:22:56
  And, you know, I'm not even going to start.
• 1:22:58
  I'm not going to start.
• 1:22:59
  Yeah.
• 1:23:00
  Oh, it, it was easy to be negative tonight and I'm trying to be positive.
• 1:23:06
  So anyway, they're there.
• 1:23:08
  You can also find me on bluesky as oldman-sac.bluesky.social, whatever.
• 1:23:17
  The podcast is really, we're promoting ourselves everywhere these days.
• 1:23:22
  We went onto Instagram, MJ got us there last year.
• 1:23:26
  We've been on bluesky.
• 1:23:27
  Now we're on gander and Eh!
• 1:23:30
  and great north social and mobe and we are on X and we're on.
• 1:23:35
  masked it on and I'm probably forgetting something else there too.
• 1:23:38
  So you can find us on any of those.
• 1:23:40
  All of them are at the CFL Outsiders.
• 1:23:43
  Look us up.
• 1:23:44
  Take a look at the new webpage on YouTube with our different logos Hopefully we'll keep having fun this year and you folks will, I don't know if you'll learn anything, but
• 1:23:54
  hopefully you'll be entertained.
• 1:23:56
  So.
• 1:23:56
  That's it for now.
• 1:23:58
  We'll see you in, I think it's about two weeks out maybe.
• 1:24:02
  But for MJ and GT, this is old man saying, get the hell off my lawn.