This week the Holy and Most Worshipful Staff at CFL.CA asks the same question everyone has been asking since 2014: Can Anyone Beat the Stamps?
Answer: No. Stop asking.
Next question: Can Anyone Beat the Stamps?
Answer: Yes. The Saskatchewan Roughriders on July 28.
JK, as the kids say. Or am I?
Okay, let’s look at what the Divine Staff at CFL.CA had to say this week.
- CALGARY STAMPEDERS
The only reason this week’s ritual pounding of the Montreal Alouettes is not going to be a 60-1 affair is because either Mr. Bo Levi Mitchell will not be playing or he will have limited reps.
I see that Jamie Nye at CFL.CA is predicting a Calgary victory this week with 98% confidence.
Mr. Nye, if that is your real name, you are essentially giving Montreal a 2% chance, so I must quote Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars: A New Hope: “I think you overestimate their chances.”
This alleged 2% would have to be the same chance that aliens will land at McMahon Stadium during the game and squash the entire Stampeder defense. And then the aliens would take a look at that dilapidated stadium and assume there is no intelligent life on Earth and irradiate the entire planet. Thanks a lot, Calgary Stampeders Football Club!
- EDMONTON ESKIMOS
The Edmonton Eskimos are taking the week off. Losers.
- HAMILTON TIGER-CATS
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats get another crack at the unpredictable Saskatchewan Roughriders this week. This is the kind of game that one expects the Roughriders to be demolished. Hence, the Roughriders will win.
There is another reason the Roughriders will win this week. They have the Calgary Stampeders at home next week.
You see, the Roughriders like to jerk Rider Nation around. The Roughriders will demolish the Hamilton Tiger-Cats this week and get everyone’s hopes up that they will be able to beat the Calgary Stampeders the following week at home. Then, on a beautiful prairie evening on July 28, in magnificent sold-out Mosaic Stadium, basking in the adoration of 33,000 fans loudly frothing at the mouth, they will totally shit the bed against the Stampeders and throw Riderville into an emotional tailspin. We’re talking a beating of biblical proportions. Cats and dogs, living together… mass hysteria! Real wrath of God type stuff. The only good part will be the Rob Vanstone Leader-Post article that will follow.
Ooooorrrrrr…
This epic beating will take place in Hamilton first, with the Roughriders getting pounded in Hamilton but then they’ll pull it all together on July 28 against the Stampeders, handing the mighty Calgary Stampeders their first loss of the season.
One or the other. But not both. Never both.
Or they’ll just lose both games.
- WINNIPEG BLUE BOMBERS
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers performed a fairly impressive impersonation of the Saskatchewan Roughriders last week, falling apart against an inferior team for no reason other than they could.
- TORONTO ARGONAUTS
I can’t tell if this team is any good or not. On the one hand, they are the reigning Grey Cup Champions and they are coached by Mr. Marc Trestman. On the other hand, they are the Toronto Argonauts, so… hmm.
- OTTAWA REDBLACKS
The Mighty Staff claims it’s too early to panic for the Ottawa REDBLACKS!, thus completing an annual summer rite of passage: the first expression of the “too early to panic” phrase. Although it can be used in reference to any CFL team that stumbles out of the gate, it is most typically used in reference to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, usually uttered within the first ten minutes of the opening day of training camp.
If you have to say it’s too early to panic, then you should have started panicking already. I say it’s never too early to panic. The real question is whether it’s too late to panic, and it’s never too late to panic. Panic early; panic often; panic always.
- BRITISH COLUMBIA LIONS
So remember that guy who ran onto the field at BC Place and got levelled by Marcell Young? Well, he’s retained a Toronto law firm, whatever that’s supposed to signify. I presume he is going to sue unless he retained the firm to do his taxes or something, although that would not explain why the law firm decided to make an announcement. I have to wonder why a British Columbia law firm wasn’t hired. I believe they have lawyers in BC. I know a few.
In the report I read, this guy who got nailed by Mr. Young was allegedly wearing “an orange Lions jersey and a pair of boxer briefs”. However, in the picture I saw, it looked like he was wearing classic trucks. More Fake News, I guess.
I’ve always wondered why no one has sued for this kind of stuff before, including idiots who get violently assaulted by professional wrestlers when they jump into the ring. Pro wrestlers seem to take the position that if you are dumb enough to get into the ring, they are no longer required to act like they are beating people up and they can do the real thing. Somehow, I’m not sure that the law would agree, but whatever.
Anyway, as for the British Columbia Lions, seventh place seems about right in the sense that it is difficult to know what to do with this team. BC Lions quarterback Travis Lulay is flat-out a great quarterback who can pull this team, perhaps kicking and screaming, into contender status, but he is always one play away from yet another inexplicable season-ending injury.
- SASKATCHEWAN ROUGHRIDERS
Mr. Rob Vanstone of “Robservations” fame is speculating that the Saskatchewan Roughriders are setting some kind of “trap” for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, as if Saskatchewan Roughriders Head Coach, Defensive Coordinator, General Manager, Vice-President of Football Operations, and guy who seems to have put the whole Duron Carer controversy to bed by simply ignoring it, Chris Jones, is the second coming of Admiral Ackbar. Or I guess this would make Mr. Vanstone Admiral Ackbar and Mr. Jones Emperor Palpatine.
Yes, that’s how that would work. And no, I’m not a nerd. Why do you ask?
- MONTREAL ALOUETTES
It is definitely too late to panic for this franchise. Panic should have set in the moment Mr. Calvillo retired. Maybe it did; that would explain the whole Kavis Reed thing.
Start loading the buses and head to Moncton. Welcome to the CFL, Atlantic Schooners!