Until Labour Day Weekend, fans around the CFL thought that the East division was an absolute joke. The playoff picture looked certain to have teams under .500 finishing on top of the division. The West was so overpowering their Eastern counterparts that fans began to demand two Western crossovers, letting only one East team into the CFL playoffs.
Christmas morning never came for those fans out West. Since the start of September, the East has been on fire and is dominating the league. And it’s not just the win-loss records that show how well the division played in September and October.
Week ten was Labour Day weekend and both the Alouettes and Redblacks went into their game at 1-7, while the 3-6 Argonauts played the 1-6 Tiger-Cats. That’s right – after ten weeks the East’s combined record was 6-26.
But that weekend was the turning point of the season for the East, as the Alouettes named Jonathan Crompton their new starting quarterback while Hamilton got Zach Collaros back from injury as they opened up at Tim Hortons Field.
Under Crompton and a rejuvenated ball-hawking, hard-hitting defence, the Alouettes have reversed their record and gone 7-1. Currently they’re playing .500 football, on top of the division. Their wins haven’t come against weak teams, either. The Calgary Stampeders were handed their second loss of the season in Montreal, while the Saskatchewan Roughriders were dismantled by the Larks on Thanksgiving Monday. The defence has allowed only 60 points during their league-high five game winning streak.
As they prepare to close out the season against Toronto then Hamilton, Montreal is playing the most exciting football in the East and are the catalysts behind this exciting divisional finish. A win this week will send Tom Higgins’s team to a 19th straight post-season – never missing one since their re-installment in the league in 1996. If the Tiger-Cats lose, the Alouettes will also clinch the division and will host the Eastern final at Molson Stadium.
The inconsistent Argonauts squad still have a chance at landing anywhere between first and third in the division. With the weakest record of the top three since Labour Day at 4-3, the Boatmen should be grateful they hold the first tie-breaker over rival Tiger-Cats with a 2-1 record in head-to-head games. Ricky Ray led the charge in an exciting game over Hamilton on Saturday, barring the Tiger-Cats from early playoff qualification and giving the team a huge boost in their chances to make it to the post-season.
This week’s game in Montreal will be a challenge for Scott Milanovich’s team, testing their resilience when under pressure. A loss combined with a Tiger-Cats win in Ottawa will leave the Argos with little control of their destiny in week 20 as they would need a Montreal win at Tim Hortons Field, where the black-and-yellow are 6-0.
Meanwhile, Hamilton has the toughest shot at making the playoffs. Luckily for them, they play the 2-14 Redblacks before returning home for what might be the biggest game of the CFL season against Montreal. Collaros has been phenomenal while Luke Tasker and the rest of their offence were stopped only three times since the beginning of September but picked up six wins for the team.
6-3 isn’t the best record to lead into the playoffs, should they make it, especially considering their losses came against Toronto and Montreal. But the Tiger-Cats are a tough gang to beat and they showed it last year when they made it all the way to the Grey Cup despite not having a home stadium the whole season. Kent Austin is a proven coach come this time of the year and one should never count the Tiger-Cats out when the leaves start falling.
After this weekend, all three teams will still have a shot at the playoffs and none of them is eliminated yet. It’s nothing like the West where the Stampeders are up ten points on the third-placed Lions, and four teams have clinched playoff berths and are only battling for position. Only two teams can get in from the East, so the division is nice and tight right up to the finish. Fans across Canada will have Christmas in November when they watch the next two weeks of football.
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