Good Day Everyone,
Now I’m not usually one to raz on or criticize officials. I realize it’s a very difficult job and they have to very quickly make a decision on a play that often may happen over the course of a split second. However, they are paid to be the best at calling a game in their sport, be fair and make the right call.
Over my almost 20 years of watching the Canadian Football League, I’ve seen the league survive its deathbed and continue to grow and thrive in 2011 off the field. On the field, the product has improved as well, with stronger, faster and overall better athletes than we have ever seen before.
However, after watching pretty much four blowout games this past weekend, one ongoing issue with CFL officiating came to my head. CFL officials seem to often blow calls that I can make by watching the game on television before I see the replay.
I’ll give you one glaring example, that I believe made CFL officials look bad. As the Montreal Alouettes were carving up my Hamilton Tiger Cats in revenge for Labour Day, Tiger Cat Quarterback threw a wideout pass to wide receiver Bakari Grant. Grant bobbled the nicely thrown ball and it went out of bounds. Incomplete Pass!!!!! Instead the official ruled Grant caught the ball and it was a Hamilton first down. That stood, until Alouette Head Coach Marc Trestman challeged the ruling and it was rightfully reversed.
Now maybe I have the advantage of a higher and better angle of the play on television or even in the stadium, but this always leads me to ask, if I can make this call correctly, why can’t they?
Here are some more examples of bad CFL officiating from this season alone. Back in July when the Als and Ticats played in Hamilton in a nailbitter of a game, a Hamilton defender was called for pass interference, when he clearly jumped up and caught the football in the endzone.
Or the Argo Eskimo game in Edmonton. At the end of the 1st half, both teams are walking off the field after Toronto stopped Edmonton at their one yard line, when the officials call both teams back because apparently there were 1.6 seconds left on the clock. Edmonton then scored a touchdown and ended up winning the game by one point. Now I know both hockey and basketball rely on tenths of seconds in those respective sports. But when in football have you ever heard of a play stopping on a tenth of a second? The times are usually clocked by seconds and that’s it.
Controversly, during last week’s Argo and BC Lion game, the officials missed several holding calls, one in particular against the argo offensive line, that I thought were very obvious.
Now I have a colleague that officiates minor football here in the Hamilton area. He tells me CFL officials have to go through very intense and rigorous training program compared to minor football referees. I truly believe him. However it is not enough. The game is obviously faster and training of CFL officials must be improved to keep up with that. How to go about doing that exactly? I don’t know!!!! I don’t have enough expertise on that topic. But when people consider the CFL to be a bush league because of its poor officiating, the league has a responsibility to shed itself of this image and improve this situation. Then more people then who already do, will be able to take both this great Canadian game and league more seriously.
Now I know other sports leagues have officials that make mistakes. Remember last year when the Detroit Tiger pitcher had a perfect game taken away from him because the first base empire blew a call at the bag? At least that umpire admitted he made a mistake and apologized for it. Buffalo Sabres fans will never forget “No Goal!!!” Or how about when the NFL offiicial blew the cointoss between the Lions and Steelers? But mistakes like this seem to happen more often than not in the CFL, that’s why the league has to deal with this issue.
Let’s take this opportunity to open the forum and discuss blown calls by CFL officials in the past. Maybe we can find a solution for the league to deal with the issue and send our suggestion to them.
For the Last Word On Sports, I’m CM!!!!!
