TBURGESS

West: Bombers - Lost a few great players but still the class of the league Riders - Pull out all the stops to get a home Grey Cup Stamps - BLM got chased from the first pre-season game. Will happen again and again until Dicky pulls him for good. Elks - Their HC will force them to win enough games for the cross over. Lions - Poor QBing and bad OL will highlight their demise. East: Ticats - QB will keep them in most games. Als - Were close last year. Should be better this year. Might take first. Argos - SMS what SMS? Buy themselves into 3rd. redblacks - Go as far as Masoli takes them. Trending the right direction, but not quite good enough for the playoffs.

Lapo with Nichols... conservative and uninspired. Lapo with Collaros... unbeaten and a Grey Cup win. Buck with Collaros.... Grey Cup win. It's not the OC folks... It's the QB.

Brown looked better against the Riders's 2's. Prukop looked good against the 3's and 4's. Neither are starters at this point, but Brown has a better chance of getting there because he keeps his eyes down field when he scrambles.

I checked out the stats, cuz that's all I can do. Looks like the defence was close because there were very few yac yards. Prukop didn't have a good night. Kicking looked to be a problem. A nothing game that doesn't matter. No worries from me.

Some Canadians are good enough to start, but most aren't. Finding the 7th starter has always been a problem for most teams and that becomes even harder when a starting NI goes down. That's why NI starters get paid more than comparable imports & NI backups get paid more than DI's. For Example: Every team has backup NI OL's getting paid more than starting imports. The current offer seems to be 1 less guaranteed starting NI spot, but the same number of NI jobs. NI's cry 'Slippery Slope', when it only affects 1 player per team & that player can still get the starting job if they beat out an import anyway. They are basically saying that they can't compete on even ground so they should be given a starting spot.

The CFL isn't talking about eliminating the Ratio and that's the only way that we may not have seen Harris play. They are talking about reducing the ratio by 1 starter and total number of Canadian's by 1. That's just getting rid of the worst player on the team, and possibly starting one less Canadian. It's not getting rid of Canadian starters or Canadian stars and Harris is both. Note that starting ratio is a minimum, not a maximum number. Teams could start 24 Canadians if they want under current rules and under the proposed rules. They could have a whole team with zero Americans.

The 49% rule is stupid and it should go. The offer being voted on is as outlined by Booch. 8 NI's, one of which is an American NI and 3 more who can play up to 49% of the snaps. 6:1 was the original offer with 6 guaranteed NI starters + 1 Yankee NI. It's a better idea and hopefully what the league went back to. Allowing hundreds of players, who have never played in the CFL and most are likely not going to, vote is also stupid. If the Canadian's have the votes, then they should get the contract rules they want. The ratio isn't set in stone, and it shouldn't be. One less Canadian means the worst player on the team gets replaced by a better American. Most folks don't even know that players name, let alone root for him. It's ridiculous to suggest that top players like Andrew Harris wouldn't get a shot if the ratio is lowered and the CFL isn't suggesting getting rid of the ratio. Starting Canadian's afraid of losing their jobs to better American's, are saying that they're only playing because of their passport. I'd rather watch the best players compete in the CFL with CFL rules, just like I like watching the best players play in the NFL, NHL etc..

Vancouver had a correction in the late 70s. It's been all upward since then despite folks calling for a correction every year or two. As it hasn't ended yet, we don't know how long it can last. Vancouver under $350K is 1 derelict float home, 10 Condos, 7 of which are in leasehold buildings where you don't own anything other than the right to live there and the other 3 are in known leaky buildings. Winnipeg under $350K is 856 listings, including detached houses that look pretty nice. Vancouver's West End, where I lived, is up 78% in the last 5 years alone. If you can afford to get into that market, you make a ton of non-taxed money every year, just living in it. You don't get that kind of bump in Winnipeg.

The housing market in Van-bloody-cover has always been nuts. When we moved there in the 90s we sold our new house (infill) in River Heights which was paid off and ended up with a mortgage that was worth more than our Winnipeg house to live out in Surrey.

Not for me. I retired 5 years ago @ 60.

I don't think either Edmonton or Winnipeg are scenic. They are very similar cities.

Ratio should be easy to understand, easy to implement and easy to penalize. Minimum X Canadians, Minimum Y Canadian starters, Maximum Z Imports, No special QB ratio rules.

I guess there's a new job... Snap Counter. They'll need an app that they click on which players are in on each snap and keeps a running snap count for offence, as second one for defence and a running % for each Yankee NI. Actually, there won't be any in game penalty for snap % infractions. If there were, then you'd have to have Canadian's first, Yankee NI's second and keep the Canadian's in 1 additional play each set of downs. Otherwise, their would be a snap % infraction as soon as the Yankee NI plays as many plays or more than the real NI. Example: If you start your Yankee NI's. Play one, they are over 50% of the plays. It's just stupid. Ratio should be simple: Minimum X Canadians, Maximum Y Imports. Minimum Z Canadian starters.

Disagree all you want. History shows you don't mind being wrong. The leagues offer isn't based on how much money they make or don't make any more than the cost of gas is based on how much it costs to get it to your vehicle. Revenue sharing is just a term that doesn't really mean anything other than the players asked for revenue sharing. It's just the number that the league is using to base the players percentage on. It's purposely vague. If I were the CFLPA, I'd ask for real money, instead of so called revenue sharing.

Edmonton lost more than a million bucks. Toronto and Montreal are being supported by the league. My guess is that Winnipeg and Regina made money while the rest lost or barely made any. The CFL isn't going to share the gross revenue that a couple of teams make with the players before they cover the losses of the other teams. Net revenue, even CFL wide, isn't a big number. In fact, it might be a negative number these days. The league has offered to share a specific amount of revenue. That's the number they're willing to share. It's none of the players business how much each team makes or doesn't make.

The teams don't want revenue sharing. The players do. The teams offered to share specific parts of the revenue. The players want them to share all parts of revenue and not to share any of losses. Suddenly we're watching a strike.

Pads sh'mads. Lots of injuries don't care if you're padded or not. Achilles, Knees, torn muscles etc. The players are taking a pretty big risk practising without coverage.

12 padded practices is less than one a week and way less than they used to have. Heck, they had 2 a days in pads back in the day. That's a dumb hill to die on IMO. Revenue sharing? What revenue? The CFL is propping up teams with money from the other clubs. Edmonton lost over a million bucks last year. The players have no business in sharing revenue unless they're willing to share the losses to and we all know they aren't about to do that. I agree with 5 years and setting the expiry date at least 30 days before training camps. I'd like to see it set to the last day in March.

Jame Wild Wild West Bennie The Hit Man Thompson

As long as the Esks/Elks do better than last season... yup.

There are a thousand US players for every Cdn player. Teams are forced to 'overpay' Canadian players, especially the starters. With extra US players the overpay would go down. Therefore it would reduce the amount needed to pay and get better talent. Teams would still spend to the SMS limit, but they'd get better players for their money.

Reducing the number of NI's on each team would increase the talent level and reduce the cost of the CFL. No one would miss the worst 2 NI's on the team. Not many folks would even be able to name them. Replace them with DI's. Finding the 7th starting NI is tough for most teams. Reduce the guaranteed NI starters by 1 and increase the number of US starters by 1. FTW: Globals don't take NI jobs. They are a completely different group. There are a MINIMUM number of Canadians and that number hasn't changed.. yet.

I like the elimination of the Vet American Ratio, but the rest... yikes!

There's a big difference between: Do you vote for 4 downs & Do you vote to explore 4 downs My guess is that it was Question #2.

Yes Swift.