Schadenfreude in Double Blue | GRUFF, Vol. 4.
Finding moral clarity in sport is often a fool’s errand — but not in the CFL, where fans rightly troll the Toronto Argonauts for comforting Chad Kelly more than survivors of sexual harassment.
(CW/TW: This does contain a discussion of workplace bullying and sexual harassment.)
None of the principal figures on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers — quarterback Zach Collaros, head coach Michael O’Shea, and key national starters such as cornerback Tyrell Ford — have publicly damaged the league’s integrity.
That makes them the Grey Cup sentimental favourite.
Hearing “integrity” in the context of the CFL and a Grey Cup that involves the Toronto Argonauts should tip the angle of this coverage.
Suffice it to say, a game ball is due to someone in the Football Fates’ Ironic Punishments Division for what they cooked up for the Argonauts and quarterback Chad Kelly (out, fractured tibia, questionable morals). They understood the assignment. So the Argonauts are in the big game without QB1, who missed half the season afer he “unequivocally violated” the league’s gender-based violence policy.1
Well-done.
Kelly, and enablers throughout the Argonauts organization, damaged the life of a woman working in football. That should not be memory-holed, especially since the CFL, a sports property which is always battling, lost assets when staff members reportedly quit over the league’s handling of the complaint.2
It needs to be talked about here to nix any narrative that tries to generate sympathy for Kelly.
The spur for this is the indignance from the next man up, Nick Arbuckle. In the postgame heat, the backup quarterback said Montréal fans were “laughing and chanting” after Kelly was injured.3
Oh, now people in Argo-land care about human dignity? Too late.
To review: read everything from last winter about how the Argonauts responded around November 2023 when an assistant strength and conditioning coach told them Chad Kelly had been sexually harassing her over two seasons. Focus on who assistant general manager John Murphy allegedly accused of “open(ing) a can of worms that didn’t need to be opened,” since that was not Chad Kelly.
Or remember that the coach’s lawsuit was filed on Feb. 21. And it took 11 weeks for general manager Michael Clemons to make any public comment — and the team still had “a banner featuring Kelly in uniform flapping in the wind” on display when he did.4 Those banners should have been down much, much sooner. Symbolism matters.
Briefly, I plan to watch the Grey Cup on Nov. 17. The Blue Bombers are back for the fifth season in a row and are going for their third win in that span It is a game to look forward to regardless of who is playing since it is a bit of unique Canadiana worth having. And since the Blue Bombers haven’t shamed the entire league, one would hope they win big.
Out of a need to stay positive, let’s laud Winnipeg for being the standard-bearer the league always needs. The CFL works best when one team is raising the bar and forcing everyone else to step up their game.
The short-term, small-thinking focus on being a salary-capped nine-team league causes instability and distances the public from the players.
However, Winnipeg has kicked ass with class since just before COVID with familiar football men — Collaros in the pocket dissecting zone defenses, imposing men on the lines such as Willie Jefferson defensively and Stanley Bryant at right tackle.
The football ops people — O’Shea, general manager Kyle Walters, CEO and president Wade Miller — each have a background in Canadian university football. Unsurprisingly, they have a competitive environment that nudged league-leading rusher Brady Oliveira, all-star cornerback Tyrell Ford and steady slotback Nic Demski along a development arc from the ranks of U Sports-member teams to breaking out in the CFL.
And, as a one-time Manitoba resident, there is a reciprocal devotion. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are always said to have the most devoted fan base in the CFL. But everything people know about the ’Riders is true of the Bombers and Manitoba. They just don’t talk as much.
It is a model to study, and copy, if we are ever going to have true Canadian vernacular sports culture again, with strong domestic leagues.
Are they perfect humans? Far from it. Right now, though, they are the integrity team. And they communicate the right lessons about teamwork and not being bigger than the game.
One big negative ruins positives
Some of those virtues are probably present within the Argonauts. Alas, mais n’oublions pas, all of that is blotted by how that organization mishandled the allegations to protect Chad Kelly, a harmful man who happens to be a good CFL quarterback.
Fans in other CFL stadiums were right to be snarky about it, even when Kelly went down with a serious injury. His injured form was just a proxy for Clemons, Murphy, and the outgoing CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie who forgot that people other than sexists enjoy football.
Saturday, they saw an opportunity and took it. Unfortunately for the Montréal fans, a football game is long. The Alouettes seemingly could not hold on to the football for long, coughing up five fumbles and interceptions in the two-point defeat. C’est la vie, and que sécurité du ballon, sécurité du ballon.
The coach’s suit, per reports, stated the harassment occurred over the ’22 and ’23 seasons. It wasn’t one time. It should register with anyone who knows what it is like to be in a support or a secondary role on a sports team, at any level. The dark truth of being ‘just happy to be there’ is that you are expected to suffer jerkasses gratefully.
You’re bullied because of seemingly lesser status. That trauma does not go away after an apology, or after you move on to something else. Perhaps putting it that way helps any apologists understand harassment.
So people don’t come forward after the first, second, or third time they get bullied or harassed. So, since the reports were sealed, one can only imagine how long the “repeated, unwanted sexual advances” from Chad Kelly were part of the woman’s workdays.
There was a three-month investigation. Of course, since it involves a male athlete people cheer for and a woman whose identity must be shielded to protect her, that means it gets re-litigated in comment sections. It becomes all about how hard this has been on Chad Kelly.
The crude acts would have been despicable in any context. Those also ran against how major pro sports operate. Even when the players on the field are all male, but every successful organization has women in crucial roles who are probably overqualified, since they had to overcome double standards just to get in the door.
(You are welcome to make any contrast with other realms of public life, where mediocre nepo babies and other puppets hold high office.)
It is wrong to protect and support men who harm because they might have unaddressed hurts. While CFL teams in particular love their community-leaders prattle, the Argonauts ignored it, and pushed the CFL farther away from the league with heart that people treasure.
Instead, they just re-platformed a player who should have been packaged out. It really is not about Chad Kelly, or transgressions that finished him at Clemson, or with the Denver Broncos, but you can Google those. It is about the Argonauts, a Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment property, deciding (so far) that this was acceptable.
Kelly would be fine without the CFL. Four-down ersatz leagues are everywhere outside of Canada. Has Vladimir Putin started the KFL yet?
Fans sometimes get accused of not letting something die. It depends on how that is focused. You can probably have some fun googling athletes’ names and adding “+ arrest” to see what comes up. However, fans should bring it up since, yes, the media tends to let something die once the people with power stop answering the questions.
The effect of the Argonauts fumbling this by re-platforming Kelly is the expectation people who want to watch the CFL are OK with it. Now, the ratings for the playoff games are up, so it’s possible this did not register with a lot of the public. It registered here, though.
The dubious assertion by the commissioner was a hope that “Chad will be a spokesperson to explain to men and boys that kind of behaviour is inappropriate.”5 And did anyone ask what plan was in place for that? Or did they just cynically take it as boilerplate, without realizing how many people do not see through it?
The problem when that happens is the bully tropes are reinforced. Survivors of harassment — of all gender identities, and not limiting this to sexual harassment — get seen as weak or lacking. In reality, having the strength to say “no more” is strong.
Football is controlled, organized violence, and it is a brutal business, but it is a game. And it is possible to keep most of that inside those white lines and act professionally on the five or six days between game days. People didn’t get to see it discussed in court, but
Again, the only reason to go on (or off) about this is that, yes, ethically, there is no problem with some fans breaking an unwritten rule that you do not cheer for an injury. The Argonauts threw basic civility, manners, and ethics to the wind.
It is très drôle that the Argonauts got the Grey Cup berth but lost a critical cog in their offence. Arbuckle has started for other CFL teams, and he could surprise ya, but ultimately a hobbled Argonauts team is deserve.
They made a choice, rolled around it, and deserved to be trolled for it.
The Vanier Cup could be something special
If you need a mark-my-words post, well, then, the national semifinals in U Sports will be Laurier and Laval warm-up games. Can you live with that risk?
They have to play them, and the Ontario and Québec reps are on the road this Saturday. The Laurier Golden Hawks visit the Bishop’s Gaiters in an all-purple affair in the Uteck Bowl (12 noon, CBC platforms). The Laval Rouge et Or are at the Regina Rams in the Mitchell Bowl (3 p.m., CBC platforms).
Laurier-Bishop’s
Laurier made it look like this 116th Yates Cup was won on whatever day quarterback Taylor Elgersma, a London, Ont., native, threw in his lot with the Golden Hawks. They were commanding, and the 51-31 scoreline against the Western Mustangs was a mild tribute to Western. It takes more than a quarterback to be a good team, but they always are the nerve centre.
Nominally, it was a one-touchdown spread at halftime. Out of the extended halftime, Laurier scored 17 consecutive points and gained 160-plus yards, with a 70/30 split in rushing gains to passing against, before Western earned its next first down. Laurier O-linemen such as Cooper Hamilton were opening gaping rushing lanes. Impressively, the defensive players coached by longtime Laurier defensive coordinator Ron VanMoerkerke were attuned to the chance for a quick KO and got it without having a breakdown or committing a penalty.
It evoked Laurier’s two other Vanier Cup-winning teams, in 1991 and 2005. Both regularly punched in bunches through the rushing and passing games, and had defences that could quickly regain possession. Elgersma is talismanic and also an automatic 300-yard game, but Laurier ended up having close to 300 rushing yards while trying to run down the clock.6
Until it happens, there is no knowing how domination at the OUA level converts into a matchup with Laval, the reigning clear mastodonte du Québec.
First, Laurier is at Bishop’s, which pulled an all-time Houdini act against the Saint Mary’s Huskies in the Atlantic final. The eastern Huskies pulled a Mario Cristobal They could have kneeled down to clinch a three-point win. Instead, they called a competitive play, and one of the guileful Gaiters jarred the ball free.
Seemingly down and out with 16 seconds left and down by three Gabriel Royer forced a Saint Mary's fumble that led to (an Xavier) Gervais game-tying field goal with six seconds left to force OT.
The Royer magic came after the Gaiters were in field goal range to tie the game but had fumbled themselves and gave Saint Mary's the ball and what appeared to be the game and title with 48 seconds left an no timeouts left. The Huskies ran the ball, and Royer, the 2022 AUS Defensive Player of the Year forced the ball loose. Kyle Chorney pounced on it to give the Gaiters life and a movie script ending. (atlanticuniversitysport.com)
It ended up going to kicks, essentially. University football uses a version of the U.S. college overtime format, except possessions start at the 35-yard line, and there are no mandatory two-point events. Each offence would move a little, and then the kicker would trot out. In the top of the third overtime, Saint Mary’s Adam Johnston was wide on a 44-yarder. Gervais got to kick the clincher from closer than that.
A narrow overtime win probably does not speak well for Bishop’s. They will be in their first bowl in 29 seasons, repping the little-brother conference that has not had a Vanier appearance in the last 15 seasons. So there’s some motivation to keep them going until the kickoff.
Laval-Regina
Laval has won eight consecutive playoff games against Canada West teams, while Regina is the first Hardy Cup winner with a 3-5 regular-season record. Once there was a belief this matchup would happen on the regular. Let’s save that.
In the aggregate, a new team seeing the Laval football machinery is for the greater good. This iteration has a playmaking edge rusher, Loïc Brodeur, who plays in the opposing backfield and had 2½ sacks in the playoff win against Montréal, including the sack-forced fumble that set up the decisive touchdown. And Armand Desjardins is a reliable QB. Watching film probably doesn’t do justice to how physical Laval is along the lines, or how quickly their linebackers and defensive backs meet at the point of attack in ill humour.
Regina, at least, presents as gritty. They scuffled so much they had five losses in a row. They allowed the fewest points in the Canada West regular season. Saturday, they nicked four interceptions from Saskatchewan quarterback Anton Amundrud in the Hardy Cup, including the one Carson Sombach housed for the winning touchdown.7
So why is it odd it took until 2024 for them to meet? Both were 1990s expansion teams with a sport model that was supposed to shake up the university football hierarchy.
Laval was a disruptor in university football. It was the first to have the team run with some autonomy from a university athletics and recreation department. It also tapped a rich vein of Québec football talent and culture. By their fourth season, 1999, they were national champions. The Rouge et Or are 11-2 all-time in the Vanier Cup just over that 24-season span.
The Regina Rams were a successful Canadian Junior Football League-level team that decided to level up in the late 1990s. They moved the operation to the U of R — the school’s other teams are the Cougars — and joined Canada West, balancing it at six teams. The logic was sound. Instead of players spending their late teens and early 20s with the Rams and enriching the other CW teams, the Rams could keep ’em and beat those teams, especially the Saskatchewan Huskies.
In their Year 2, 2000, Regina had one of those playoff runs that seems to happen in CW. From the 3 seed in the league playoffs, they went all the way to the Vanier Cup. They had a super-super-senior quarterback, Darryl Leason, who was likened to Chris Weinke, who that very same year won the Heisman Trophy as a 28-year-old at Florida State. Future longtime NFL punter Jon Ryan was a starting receiver and Leason also had longtime CFLers Jason Clermont and Neal Hughes as offensive complements.
There was a line from the Regina head coach, Frank McCrystal. “I told them that if we went to the Atlantic Bowl I’d take them to see Peggy’s Cove and that if we went to the Vanier Cup (in Toronto) I’d take them to see Niagara Falls.”
In the first playoff game, Regina was down two touchdowns in the fourth quarter at Calgary in freezing-rain conditions — and rallied to win 33-32 on a last-play single point. They won by a field-goal margin at Manitoba in the Hardy Cup.
Next, they went down east to face Saint Mary’s in the national semifinal in Halifax. Saint Mary’s took a 12-point lead with under three minutes to play, but Hughes ripped off an 89-yard kickoff-return TD. Regina pressed, and was stopped, and Saint Mary’s conceded a safety. On that kickoff, Hughes rambled for a 65-yard-plus return, cueing Leason to engineer a short drive for a 40-36 win.
They ran out of magical prairie-football pixie dust against Ottawa and Phil Côté in the Vanier Cup, but at least kept the score respectable at 42-39. However, it turned out that early promise did not turn into more. That is the way it goes.
Again, it’s a wild card when teams go out of conference. Laval is 10-1 all-time in national semifinals and Vanier Cup games against Canada West teams. There was that two-point defeat against Saskatchewan in the 2005 Mitchell Bowl. Since then, eight in a row.8
Ah yes, American college football
Round up the usual suspects of remaining unbeaten teams.
The College Football Playoff rankings are update each Tuesday. They don’t align to the Associated Press Top 25, since conference champions receive the top four spots in the CFP regardless of the polls. The primary obsession, of course, is whether one of the teams that earns a No. 5 through No. 8 seed will be hosting in a snow-filled stadium on Dec. 20.
If it just went by the AP ranking, the potential 12 vs. 5 matchup would pit the Miami Hurricanes against the Indiana Hoosiers. Indiana and Canadian quarterback Kurtis Rourke are up to No. 5, with a bye week before their Nov. 23 game at now-No. 2 Ohio State. Please do not let that coincide too much with the 1 p.m. kickoff for the Vanier Cup.
Alas, would-be CFP crashers such as Kansas State, Iowa State, and Arizona State have receded into ‘nice season for them’ range. A non-blueblood needs to remain at one loss to be seriously considered.
That is more than enough for now. Please stay safe, and be kind — especially to yourself.
Darrell Davis, “Chad Kelly and the Toronto Argonauts are in very deep trouble,” Regina Leader-Post, May 8, 2024.
Paul Friesen, “Nathan Rourke: Argonauts, CFL, dropped ball on Chad Kelly allegations,” Winnipeg Sun, April 11.
JC Abbott, “Argos QB Nick Arbuckle calls out Montreal fans for 'laughing and chanting' following Chad Kelly's injury,” 3DownNation, Nov. 10.
Justin Dunk, “ ‘I’m the boss’: Michael ‘Pinball’ Clemons takes blame for Toronto Argos mishandling harassment claims,” 3DownNation, May 9.
Kevin Mitchell, “ ‘I’m in shock right now,’ ” Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Nov. 9.
2006 Vanier (Saskatchewan), 2008 Uteck (Calgary), 2010 Vanier (Calgary), 2011 Mitchell (Calgary), 2013 Vanier (Calgary), 2016 Vanier (Calgary), 2017 Mitchell (Calgary), 2022 Vanier (Saskatchewan).