Friday, October 31, 2008

CFL or NFL?

If you’re Canadian and someone asks if you like football there are four suitable answers:

a. Yes.
b. I’m a CFL fan.
c. I’m an NFL fan.
d. I hate soccer.

While I suspect most of you would reply with an enthusiastic ‘yes’, it would be foolish not to assume some of you are fans of either one league or the other. (For now, we’ll leave soccer on the outside.)

To fully determine which answer is most appropriate for you, consider the following:

If you enjoy waking up at the crack of dawn and heading down to the stadium to tailgate for hours before kick-off, you’re a NFL fan. If you slam six cans of beer in between parking your car and walking across the parking lot to the game, you’re a CFL fan.

If you want 110-yard touchdowns, 2-1 scores and gambling (going for it) on third down the CFL is your game. If you want 50-yard punts and real 50-yard field goals, along with 2000 Bud Light commercials, focus on the NFL.

If you live for Sundays and aren’t afraid to spend 6-10 hours firmly fastened to the couch, you’re a NFL fan. (Some people might call you lazy. I call you dedicated.)

If you want to see the same half dozen quarterbacks continuously being run out of one city only to become competent again in the next, it’s the CFL for you.

If you like to catch your favorite players on the nightly news (no, not SportsCenter), you’re an NFL fan. If you stroll past your favorite players in Wal-Mart, you’re a CFL fan.

If you think a team should have to win at least half their games in order to qualify for the playoffs, the NFL is your league.

If you want to believe a running back rushing for over 1000 yards in a season is still meaningful, you should be following the CFL.

If you enjoy creative and sometimes over-the-top touchdown dances, CFL games will provide it. If you want to see players celebrate awkwardly or not at all because they don’t want to be fined by commissioner Roger Goodell, the NFL won’t disappoint you.

If you’re looking for the best halftime studio analysis the CFL is where you’ll find it. Randorf, Schultz, Dunigan and Climie are far and away the best panel in professional football. If you prefer hysterical laughing or listening to an incomprehensible Shannon Stewart, the NFL has you covered.

And while we’re on the subject of entertainment: NFL fans are treated to Usher, Keith Urban and Natasha Bedingfield, big, relevant names to kick-off a season. For the Grey Cup CFL fans somehow ended up with Theory of a Deadman, Suzie McNeil and someone named Andree Watters. Hey, at least it wasn’t Def Leppard.

(Quick tangent because I’m not ready to let this go: Did the NHL honestly believe Def Leppard was an appealing choice for their audience? Who okayed this? People thought McCain choosing Palin as his running mate was a bad selection. Well, this was easily 1000 times worse. What was the NHL thinking?)

If you’re a NFL fan you watch football with one eye attached to your fantasy scoreboard. If you’re a CFL fan you think a fantasy league involves five names of famous people you’re never going to hook up with.

(Tangent #2: I play fantasy sports 12 months a year and usually have numerous teams in several sports on the go, yet I’ve never been invited to join a CFL fantasy league. Not once. I’ve never even heard of a fantasy CFL league in casual conversation. Naturally, I googled CFL Fantasy football and clicked on fantasy.cfl.ca. This is what came up on the page:

CFFL Players,
Due to an unfortunate situation, all week 12 points will be nullified and the weekly prizes will be given out randomly. The Grand Prize standings will pick up again for week 13’s games.
We are sorry for the inconvenience. Our sincere apologies,
The CFFL Team

Rest assured, if an NFL Fantasy league tried to pull something like this, we’d be looking at multiple homicides and hundreds of friendships irrevocably damaged.)

If you're a NFL fan, years will pass before your team squares off against every other team in the league. If you're a CFL fan you wish years would go by without seeing the Tiger Cats come to town.

If you’re a NFL fan you grew up hearing stories about the ‘frozen tundra’. If you’re a CFL fan you grew up on the frozen tundra.

1 comment:

  1. I actually run a Fantasy CFL league. It's definitely not easy finding guys to play when an opening comes up... but I actually prefer it to Fantasy NFL which is completely over-covered and over-hyped.

    You don't have to do any "research" in Fantasy NFL ... All the information and predictions are thrown in everybody's face and any knucklehad can win a championship just by looking at all the official "expert suggestions" posted on his league homepage.

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