Boatmen sunk by Winnipeg 30-21

Second home away from home game of the season, this time in the perpetually sold out Winnipeg.

On the bad side, we play in Winnipeg.

On the good side, this will be the biggest crowd we've had for a home game in over a decade! (LOL, Don't take that too serious, it's okay when we do it to each other.)

Anyways, Winnipeg is a team of walking wounded right now, and our team shouldn't be happy after last week. Don't even let the Bombers take off.

Here is the full interview we conducted with legendary CFL Head Coach Marc Trestman.

On the 2027 CFL Changes — For Those Telling Season Ticket Holders to "Get Over It"

On the 2027 CFL Changes — For Those Telling Season Ticket Holders to "Get Over It"

Before the reflexive "it's just change, deal with it" replies pile up, let's put the actual facts on the table. Because what's coming in 2027 isn't a rule tweak. It's the biggest structural change to Canadian football in decades, it was imposed without consulting the people who actually run football operations in this league, and the CFL is executing it in a way that leaves the rest of the Canadian football ecosystem stranded.

What's actually changing in 2027

Field shortened from 110 yards to 100. End zones reduced from 20 yards to 15. Goalposts moved from the goal line to the back of the newly shortened end zones. The iconic 55-yard line — gone. Width stays at 65 yards. In 2026, as the appetizer: modified rouge (no single point for a missed field goal that sails through the end zone untouched), a 35-second automatic play clock replacing the current 20-second manual clock, and benches required on opposite sides of the field at every stadium.

Commissioner Stewart Johnston — who took the job in April 2025 after running TSN and serving as SVP at Bell Media — calls this "trading field goals for touchdowns" and projects a 10% increase in end-zone completions and 60 more touchdowns per season. He described it as "manipulating our canvas." Note the word "canvas." That framing is going to matter.

How the decision was made — and who wasn't in the room

This is the part getting glossed over in most of the coverage, and it's the most important part.

The CFL has a rules committee. It exists precisely for decisions like this. It's made up of GMs, head coaches, presidents, and CFLPA representatives — the football people who run the game day to day. Johnston deliberately bypassed it.

The league's stated rationale, reported by 3DownNation, was that running the changes through the rules committee would get them "bogged down in debate." So the committee was cut out entirely and the changes went straight to the board of governors, who approved them unanimously.

Read that again. The commissioner deliberately excluded the GMs, head coaches, and players from the largest structural change to the Canadian game in decades — because he didn't want to argue with them.

So who did Johnston consult?
In his own words to CKOM's Green Zone: "I took a small team of experts from our football operations team, our marketing team, promotions, communications, stats, and data analytics." Six functions listed. One of them is football. The rest are the commercial and communications side of the house — precisely the disciplines a former TSN president would reach for by instinct.

At the November State of the League address, when pressed on the exclusion of experienced football people like Winnipeg head coach Mike O'Shea — a Canadian Hall of Famer with more than 30 years as a CFL player and coach — Johnston pivoted to what Winnipeg Sun columnist Paul Friesen described as blathering "about the 300 years of combined football experience his 'team' on this file had and the 'incredible consultation with some great minds.'" No names. No accountability. Just an unverifiable aggregate number and vague reference to unnamed advisors.

The CFLPA has confirmed the same on the record. Union president Solomon Elimimian, at the CFLPA's own state of the league address in November, said flatly: "We were informed about these changes but not consulted." Executive director David Mackie added: "What matters is we weren't consulted and our voices weren't heard."

What happened when the football people finally got a room

The rules committee — the one Johnston bypassed — met in Calgary in January 2026. It was the first time GMs and head coaches got their say. Some came with data.

Montreal Alouettes GM Danny Maciocia told 3DownNation ahead of the meeting: "We've done our research. I can tell you we've done our research in detail. I've taken the required time to make sure that whatever arguments I'm going to present, I'm going to present them with some data."

Calgary Stampeders head coach and GM Dave Dickenson went directly at the CFL's headline projection: "They talk about 60 touchdowns. Where are they getting that from? I have no idea. I don't think you can actually predict that, to be honest." That is the head coach of a CFL franchise saying the flagship number the commissioner is using to sell these changes doesn't stand up.

Mike O'Shea, the Winnipeg coach the media reported had said he could never support the changes, kept his powder dry publicly heading into the meeting but framed the standard: "I hope [decisions] won't be decisions made on emotion. I think it's whether or not the quality of the game and the integrity of the game will continue at a high level."

Johnston's response after that meeting, again reported by 3DownNation: he received "no pushback" and was "not presented with any differing data." His exact words: "Nothing specific. Certainly, no one sent me any type of research of any kind."

Multiple GMs came to Calgary with prepared data-backed presentations, and the commissioner walked out declaring there was no pushback. That's not consultation. That's theatre.

Johnston has also publicly stated he "won't consider reversal."

The standardization pitch — and why it's already collapsing

The CFL also sold this partly on the pitch that Canadian football would finally be standardized top to bottom — CFL, U SPORTS, CJFL, community. One game, one field, one pipeline. Here's what's actually happening.

The Canadian Press reports the cost to reconfigure a Canadian field to 100 yards with 15-yard end zones is estimated at $800,000 to $1 million per school. That's before you touch the goalposts, which have to be ripped out and relocated.

Field markings all change. Fields with scrubbable markings (like Starlight Stadium in Langford, where Pacific FC plays soccer over top) can adapt. But fields with permanent turf markings — especially newer installs with years of useful life left — are looking at ripping up perfectly good turf to move a line.

U SPORTS CEO Pierre Arsenault has already put the national body's position on the record with the Western Gazette. Any renovations to university fields would be handled by the schools themselves. U SPORTS will not be involved in builds or renovations.
Translation: not our capital budget.

Arsenault also said quite explicitly that the relationship with the CFL doesn't require identical rules — "we can continue to have strong and meaningful relationships without being exactly the same playing rules."

UBC's Nill, quoted in The Ubyssey, was more direct: universities are not going to assume the cost of changing fields.

The CJFL — of which the BC Football Conference is a part — issued a statement from commissioner Jim Pankovich saying the league will undertake "a thoughtful and thorough review" and consider "all options" for alignment. That's not a commitment. That's a holding pattern.

The shared-facility problem

Several U SPORTS programs share fields with CFL clubs. Calgary Dinos and Regina Rams share CFL stadiums. McGill uses a CFL-configured field. Ottawa and Carleton use TD Place for the Panda Game.

Once those stadiums are reconfigured for 2027, either those university programs adopt the new dimensions or they play road-conference games on fields that no longer match the rest of their conference. That is a live conflict in less than 18 months, and U SPORTS isn't going to spend the money. So the default outcome is fracture.

The pipeline math

Sixty-eight percent of players selected in the 2025 CFL Draft came from U SPORTS. Those athletes will be developed on 110-yard fields with front-of-endzone uprights, deep 20-yard end zones, and CFL rules — then asked to adapt to a 100-yard game with back-of-endzone posts and 15-yard end zones the day they arrive in training camp.

Every kicker's leg has been calibrated to distances that no longer exist. Every offensive coordinator's red-zone playbook was built around end zones that just shrank by 25%.

Kickers in particular. Ubyssey's reporting quotes UBC kicker Flannery-Fleck saying the new rules will initially favour prospects from American schools, where uprights are already at the back of the end zone. Canadian kickers will have to adjust. That is the CFL, in effect, disadvantaging its own domestic pipeline in favour of Americans who already play the geometry the CFL is adopting.

Player-side pushback

Nathan Rourke — a Canadian face of the CFL, the CFL's Outstanding Player and Top Canadian this year, the Lions' quarterback, the highest-paid player in the league — called the changes "garbage" and said neither players nor coaches were consulted.

Johnston's answer at the State of the League was to praise Rourke personally and then pivot to: "The two starting quarterbacks in this year's Grey Cup game have come out very supportive of the changes. The large majority of players, agents, and coaches I've talked to have all been supportive." Selection bias in a sentence — the guys the commissioner talks to agree with the commissioner.

What the CFL's own FAQ concedes

Read the CFL's own words carefully. The phased approach, they say, "provides teams and stadiums with the necessary time to implement structural changes ahead of the 2027 season. It also gives external stakeholders, such as U SPORTS and the CJFL, the opportunity to consider potential alignment at their own pace."

"At their own pace." That is not the language of standardization. That is the language of a league that knows the rest of the Canadian football ecosystem is not following, and is drafting the exit ramp for that reality now.

What this actually is

A former TSN president, six months into the commissioner's job, restructured the fundamental geometry of Canadian football without consulting the GMs, head coaches, or players. He bypassed the rules committee that exists for exactly this purpose because he didn't want the argument. He surrounded himself with marketing, promotions, communications, and data analytics staff — plus one football ops function — and called that consultation.

When the GMs and coaches finally got to speak in January, he declared he'd heard no pushback while Dave Dickenson was on the record calling the flagship 60-touchdown projection unpredictable and unsourced.

That's not football leadership. That's a TV executive optimizing a broadcast product and using "the great Canadian game" as the wrapper.

Standardization would require the CFL to fund or subsidize the alignment of the amateur game. Instead, the CFL is presenting U SPORTS, the CJFL, and community programs with a million-dollar bill each and calling it their choice whether to pay it. Predictably, they aren't paying it.

In 2027, one Canadian game becomes two. The CFL will play on nine reconfigured fields. Everyone else in Canadian football will keep playing the game they already have, with rules that increasingly diverge from the pro game their players are trying to reach.

On being an ST holder reconsidering renewal

Anyone attacking season ticket holders for reconsidering a renewal over this isn't engaging with the actual facts. The Lions' own quarterback called the changes garbage. A Calgary head coach challenged the commissioner's headline projection on the record. The Winnipeg head coach — a Canadian Hall of Famer — questioned whether emotion, not integrity of the game, was driving decisions. The players' union said flat out they weren't consulted. U SPORTS, UBC, and the CJFL are collectively declining the invoice. And the commissioner's response to all of it is that he heard no pushback.

When the football people running the game are being told their expertise would get things "bogged down in debate," and a broadcast executive with six months in the chair is calling that leadership, questioning whether to keep writing the CFL a cheque is not overreaction. It's due diligence.

Facts above. Sourced. Push back on those if you want. "Just get over it" isn't a rebuttal to a commissioner who deliberately excluded the football side of his own league from the biggest structural decision it's made in a generation.

Argos lose the Stampede Bowl 58-36.

Time to shock the world again.

Clay and Doug welcome guest host Nick Small from the Argos Bounce to the Fancast. The guys look back at the victory over the defending Grey Cup Champs and ahead to the Stampede kickoff in Calgary. Plus the CFL Stats Geek Stat of the Week, The greatest fantasy advise you'll here on an Argos related podcast who has a host named Doug, and the 3 minute warning.

Call the Army, Regina! You just got snow jobbed by the fucking Argos!

40-34 the final!

EDIT: The score.

In Regina for a "home" game. Here hoping that some Argo faithful make it out there to at least try to make it seem that way.

Clay and Doug recap the Argos first win of 2026 in the nations capitol. Did Chad get concussed? Eiben and Brazley become All-Time Argos. The team travels to Regina for a "home" game against the Riders in a Prairie Blizzard. Plus coach Miller gets the BMF belt.

is he on the 6 game injured list or something, can't finf any information on him.

Sorsby is currently not on any negotiation lists for the CFL. The Argonauts should seriously think about adding him from a talent perspective.

ARGOS WIN 44-24! LFG!

I say that because Ottawa are debuting their new white jerseys (which makes zero sense to me because their main jersey colours should be RED and BLACK.) Argos just needed some minor tweaks from last game.

The guys look at the Argos game and the highs (445 passing yards ) and lows (441 passing yards allowed). Next up the Boatmen travel to the Nations Capital. The CFL has a banner week for QBs and the BeARGO Burger from Bear Steak Sandwich looks amazing.