Why Is It Worth Watching The Canadian Football League?

The Canadian Football League is a good way to sweeten the wait before the start of the NFL season. These games, despite many similar assumptions, differ significantly from the American counterpart. Canadian football betting is, however, pretty similar to the American. We invite you to a short guide to CFL.

What about this league?

The CFL currently consists of 9 teams, divided into the 4-team Eastern Division and the 5-team Western Division. East Division: Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Montreal Alouettes, Ottawa Redblacks, Toronto Argonauts. West Division: BC Lions, Calgary Stampeders, Edmonton Football Team, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Winnipeg Blue Bombers. As in almost every North American sport, the topic of league expansion and joining new teams more or less scrolls over the years, which would be a good direction, given the odd number of teams that requires some non-standard solutions in the game system.

In general, it looks like this: The 21-week regular season is home and away for each team, plus two matches against division rivals who are changed every season. Ultimately, the season consists of 18 competitions. The most popular is the Labor Day Classic—during the weekend of Labor Day (federal Workers’ Day, which covers the first Monday of September), constant duels between Toronto-Hamilton, Edmonton-Calgary, Winnipeg-Saskatchewan and Ottawa-Montreal are played, arousing a lot of local and national emotions. Six teams will advance to the play-off phase. Division winners receive a bye-week for the first round, while teams ranked 2 and 3 compete against each other in the Division Semi-final. And here we come to the Crossover Rule, which turns upside down the rules of promotion to the post-season games.

By default, 3 teams from each Division enter the playoffs. However, if the fourth team of one Division at the end of the season has a better record of victories than the third team from the opposite division, it is “transferred” behind it to its Division. Let’s take an example: Team 3 of the Eastern Division has a record of 9-9, while team 4 of the Western Division has a record of 11-7. In that case, in the East Semi-Final, we will see # 2 East and # 4 West, and # 3 East will not advance to the post-season phase at all. So far, the Crossover Rule has not contributed to determine the winner of the Gray Cup—since the introduction of this rule in 1997, none of the teams joining the PO in this way won the championship.

Why not “Canadian American Football”?

Knowing the differences between American football and Canadian football is very important. They are the key to being properly prepared before the first screening of the Canadian league. Now let’s focus on the most important dissimilarities:

1. Larger pitch – the length of the pitch is 110 yards (vs 100 yards in the NFL), width is 65 yards (vs approx. 53 yards NFL), and the end zone is 20 yards (vs 10 yards in the NFL)
2. 3 attempts to go 10 yards instead of 4 in the NFL.
3. The Canadian team has 12 players on the pitch, while in the NFL – 11.
4. 20 seconds per action after referee whistle vs 40 seconds after NFL action.
5. 3-minutes warning at the end of each half, in NFL – 2-minutes warning.
6. To Score 1-Point With Singles – Non-NFL Rule; If the kicking team misses a field goal or punches and the ball goes out-of-bounds through the end zone without being touched, the kicking team scores 1 point. The same thing happens when such a kick is caught by the defending team in their own end zone, but they do not come out of that zone.
7. There is no fair catch rule in CFL – defenders have to leave the receiver about 5 yards, but the receiver must run a run every time.
8. Player Movement on the Snap – In CFL, any player beyond the faceoff line may be moving before and during the throw-in. A gaining line of attack and a shifting defensive formation before the game starts are on the agenda in CFL.
9. A “live” ball to go out of bounds belongs to the team that touched it last.
10. A complete catching pass requires only one foot in the pitch, not two as in the NFL.
11. Open-field kick, i.e. a kick from the field towards the opponents’ end zone, is possible at any place by any player.

That was our simple guide to introduce you to the Canadian Football. Now you are ready to enjoy Canadian football games. If you want to add something, you can share your thoughts in the comments section.