The Canadian Football League has announced a plan to cut its 2021 regular season from 18 games to 2 games, all to be played on Thanksgiving weekend, or another time at some point either before or after the October long weekend, to be confirmed between now and January 1, 2027.
Each game will involve a maximum of three players on each team and games will be limited to one quarter. No contact will be allowed between players and each player must wear at least seven masks and an industrial-grade hazmat suit. There will be no preseason games, training camps, team meetings, casual discussions or eye contact between any players, coaches or staff.
The games themselves will be played inside specially constructed 12 x 12 foot sealed aluminum containers which will be destroyed immediately following each game, usually after the players have been removed.
The location of these games has not yet been determined, but CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie issued a statement indicating the league is currently scouting old abandoned mine shafts and nuclear waste disposal sites throughout Yukon and Northwest Territories.
The Grey Cup, originally scheduled for November 21 in Hamilton, is now slated to be played on a secret date at an undisclosed location, with no fans or media in attendance. Results, if any, will be announced by TSN Radio only, no earlier than one month after completion of the championship match emblematic of Canadian football supremacy.
The CFL’s announcement follows a series of drunken fist fights and one chaotic Zoom meeting between club presidents and governors on (4/20) Tuesday. Saskatchewan Roughriders president Craig Reynolds indicated he had “been on mute the entire time and I didn’t even know it. [Calgary Stampeders president John] Hufnagel wouldn’t stop using the damned cat filter and [Hamilton Tiger-Cats president Scott] Mitchell refused to put on his pants. I don’t know if he thought we couldn’t see him or if he just didn’t care. And it looked like [Winnipeg Blue Bomber president Wade] Miller had a mariachi band playing behind him. I couldn’t hear a word he said, but it sounded like he was just shouting ‘fuck this shit’ over and over.”
Asked for comment, Mr. Miller later confirmed that was exactly what was going on.
The CFL has received unofficial non-verbal approval of its return-to-play protocol from “some guy” in four of the six provinces in which it plays and all three provinces it does not. When asked what that “non-verbal” approval consisted of, Mr. Ambrosie described a “weird swirling motion of the head that we took to mean a strong maybe verging on possibly.”
Ontario and Quebec have not yet responded to the CFL’s inquiries. “We lost contact with those two provinces last March,” said Ambrosie. “The number they gave us to call turned out to be an old Blockbuster video location in Hull. I’m sure it was just a mistake and I’ve left at least twenty messages asking them to get back to me.”
Ambrosie did add that he had managed to secure 300 DVD copies of the 1987 Kim Cattrell smash comedy Mannequin.