Somebody please explain why the Canadian Football League isn’t playing games on Canada Day.
This is a league that usually honours July 1, going so far as to putting its on-field officials into patriotic red-and-white jerseys on the Canada Day Weekend. This year, the CFL plays games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday before the Canada Day holiday, but stops its schedule on Sunday, July 1, until the following Thursday.
The CFL always has weird quirks — too few days between games for some teams, misplaced byes and an inability to properly schedule timely games between divisional rivals — but this one makes even less sense when Canada Day falls on a Sunday.
It could have been a non-stop tribute to Canadian football, a full day of viewing on TSN, with the following Monday being a statutory holiday for any travelling fans. For a league that proudly flaunts its flag-waving nationalism, it’s somehow going to miss an opportunity to raise that Canadian flag on the appropriate date this year.