Each week CFL.CA posts the weekly CFL picks of six of Canada’s best sports writers, or whatever. These picks are as accurate as you would expect any picks to be for games played in the craziest and most insane and unpredictable professional sports league in the world.  And I mean that in a good way. 

However, these picks are useful for one thing: to determine when there will be an upset.  For any game in which all six writers pick the same team to win, that team historically has had a high likelihood–very high–of losing.  It is what I refer to as the kiss of death.

To be clear, these kiss of death picks are smart, informed and eminently reasonable.  But it doesn’t matter, ‘cus this is the CFL, baby!

This week, Calgary and Saskatchewan have been given the kiss of death, with the Six Horsemen unanimously picking the Stampeders and Roughriders to beat their respective opponents, the Lions and Argonauts. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who are playing the miserable and pathetic Montreal Alouettes, and who will handily beat the said miserable and pathetic Montreal Alouettes, dodged this curse because Chris O’Leary, who is obviously going through some kind of acute emotional trauma right now, picked Montreal to beat Hamilton. Nevertheless, his foolish and ignorant pick has saved Hamilton from suffering the ignominy of losing to, that’s right, the miserable and pathetic Montreal Alouettes.

I can’t speak for the Calgary Stampeders. They might have the wherewithal to overcome this jinx.  Frankly, I can’t speak for the Roughriders either, but I will anyway, and the full endorsement of all six writers is the final nail in the Roughriders’ coffin this week:  they will most definitely not beat the Toronto Argonauts on Canada Day.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders always lose games that they should win.

This game has all the hallmarks of a classic Roughriders’ calamity: home opener, playing the worst team in the league just coming off one of the worst losses in its history, big plans for game day including a massive 50/50 pot, big pre-game events, rally towels and “the biggest Canadian flag in sports” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), a huge rabid sold-out crowd with high expectations, great weather forecast, optimism caused by a huge offensive explosion last game… and the unanimous opinion that the Roughriders will, indeed, win, courtesy of… dun dun DUUUUN!…

…the Six Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

*Here’s a little-known fact about the above clip.  It’s from Gainer the Gopher’s largely forgotten but highly lucrative 2002 sex tape when he was dating a “well-known” Richardson’s ground squirrel from Biggar, Saskatchewan, named Tiffany. Shortly after the video was released, Gainer issued a statement that claimed he was “out of it”, didn’t know what he was doing during the taping of the video and apologised for his bad judgment. The relationship itself ended poorly about six months later although the two had twelve thousand children together.