CFL Week 1 Recap: New Season, New Network, Same Awesome League

Here we go! The Canadian Football League is back! This calendar year has been amazing, as it's the first to see pro football fully year round. The XFL returned to play in February and crowned a champion in May. The USFL is in their second season back in play, and is currently in the home stretch. Now, the summer football league is here--the last football season to start before the NFL returns. The CFL returns with the same nine teams, the same format, and with the same goal for said teams: the Grey Cup. But there is one difference for viewers outside of Canada, and it comes in the form of telecasts.

After years of airing on ESPN and ESPN+, this past offseason announced that the CFL has a new home for American viewers such as myself: the CBS Sports Network. The channel's no stranger to pro football, they did air games played in the short-lived Alliance of American Football in 2019. CBSSN, of course, will only air select regular season games, but the playoffs and Grey Cup will all be on the network. The other games, for viewers outside of Canada, will air on CFL+, which is on the league's website.

So without further ado, on with the 2023 CFL season, and it actually started on the western side of the country, as the Calgary Stampeders hosted the British Columbia Lions in a rematch of last season's Western Semifinal, which BC won. This game marked CBSSN's CFL debut, as it aired on the network here in the States, and the honor of scoring the first touchdown of the season went to Dominique Rhymes--an eight yard pass. It was 7-0 Lions after one, and 13-3 Lions at the half. The Stamps made attempts to make a dent in their deficit, but they could not overcome BC, who ended up winning 25-15, a good start for the Lions.

Next up was a Friday matchup between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and for the Bombers, they did not enter this season as the defending champions. They were knocked off their perch at the big game last year, and that had to really tick them off. It definitely showed early in this game. 21 points in the first quarter, and a 29-4 lead at halftime! Yeah, this team was pissed. They had just over six months to really stew, and they took it all out on their favorite punching bags, the Tiger-Cats. Hamilton did try to bounce back, and they really made it look like they would come back and get out of this, but...it just wasn't enough. 42-31 was the final score in favor of the Bombers, who are now on a new quest: getting their torch back.

The following day gave us an Eastern battle between the Ottawa Redblacks and the Montréal Alouettes, with the latter coming off a spectacular run that saw them reach the Eastern Final. I said last year that Montréal could be a force in the East Division, and they did show it, even though it was against a Redblacks team who is coming off a disastrous season. The game was close from beginning to end, but the Alouettes took it to Ottawa by a score of 19-12. I'm honestly hoping that a close game like this could lead the Redblacks improving from their last few seasons. It's time for the East Division to really be interesting again.

Opening Week ended with a West Division battle between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Edmonton Elks, two teams who missed the playoffs last year. The teams were tied at 10 at the half, though the second half started with the Riders taking the lead with a rouge. The Elks went up 13-11 with a field goal, and I was thinking, "Edmonton starting 1-0? Could this happen?" The Riders managed to regain the lead with field goals, and as for the poor Elks, well, it was just another home loss for them--their 18th straight for the Elks.

For those of you who don't like my use of "Elks," well, too bad. As you know, this is the CFL equivalent of how Washington finally got rid of "Redskins," with Edmonton doing away with "Eskimos" during the cancelled 2020 campaign. And sadly, similar to the NFL, Canada has backwards people who stick with the old name because the current name is "too woke" for them. I said it's Commanders in the NFL, and it's Elks in the CFL. Get over it. Move forward.

Per usual, there's always one team on a bye, and for Opening Week, it was the reigning, defending, undisputed Grey Cup Champions, the Toronto Argonauts. The league decided that the Argos needed an extra week to celebrate that Grey Cup from last year, while the remaining eight teams started their seasons. After Week 1, the Montréal Alouettes are 1-0, while the Ottawa Redblacks and Hamilton Tiger-Cats are 0-1 in the East. In the West, the BC Lions, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are 1-0, while both Alberta franchises are 0-1. One week down, 20 to go.

Week 2 will also see four games played on four different days, and it will start with the Ottawa Redblacks hosting the Calgary Stampeders on Thursday, June 15. On Friday, June 16, the Saskatchewan Roughriders will host the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and on Saturday, June 17, the BC Lions will host the Edmonton Elks. Finally, Week 2 will end with the defending champion Toronto Argonauts beginning their defense of the Grey Cup, and they will play host to the rival Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday, June 18.

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