CFL’s Cohon mulls earlier season start to avoid winter
CFL Commissioner Mark Cohon says the time has come to look at the league schedule with an eye to an earlier start so as to avoid playing games in sub-zero weather.
This year’s Grey Cup, the championship game, is being played in Regina where the temperature Wednesday hovered around -20 C throughout the day. There was also a windchill that made it feel even colder, around -30.
The forecast for the Sunday game, which will start at 5 p.m. CST – right around sunset in Regina – calls for warmer temperatures with a daytime high of -1 .
Cohon said Wednesday he hopes to get feedback from fans about the CFL schedule during an event Thursday.
Feedback, you say? Ok, here’s mine.
Why are we not doing this already? Why are we not getting the preseason stuff going by at least the May long weekend and playing games proper near the start of June? We’re in Canada. It’s November. Parts of last week and apparently later today notwithstanding, November is cold. Often too cold, because any temperature that must be preceded by the word minus is a temperature too cold for sane people to be engaging in any activity involving the outdoors. This, I should note, is not an opinion, no matter how many of you may wish to explain to me why it’s wrong.
I’ve never been to a Grey Cup game, but it’s on the list of things I’d love to do at least once. It would be amazing to make a big trip out of it, to take the week and just soak it all in. I think about this pretty much every year, but invariably, I hesitate. I do this because, as mentioned earlier, we’re in Canada and this is November. And November, as you may have heard, is cold. Sometimes it’s -30 cold, and that’s just absurd.
In a way I admire those crazy bastards you see at the game, the ones sitting there with their shirts off seemingly having the time of their lives. But that’s not sane, and it’s not me. You’ll never convince me that those folks aren’t at the peak of a week long bender and may not know where they are. That’s not to imply that there’s anything wrong with a week long bender, but I know myself well enough to understand that even a week long bender isn’t going to keep me warm and in good spirits for an entire day of mini concerts and the most important football game of the year. and if I can’t have fun around those things, somebody’s doing something wrong. And no, somebody is not me.
So in summation, yeah. Move that shit back already, even if playoff season is pretty much the only reason why I don’t want to kill myself every November.