The CFL season has kicked off and the Toronto Argonauts are already 1-0 after beating the visiting Saskatchewan Roughriders 21-10. I'm not the world's biggest CFL fan but I'm glad the league exists and I wish our Argos well each season. I'll even watch an Argos game on television if the timing's right and I always check them out come playoff time. I would be very sad if the CFL ever shut its doors for good.
There was one thing about the CFL that always baffled me growing up. In a league as small as our football league, how is it possible that two franchises had the same nickname? There were the Saskatchewan Roughriders, which we beat on Tuesday, and the Ottawa Rough Riders, which folded a few years back. Eight teams and two with the same obscure name. Can you imagine a new franchise in Major League Baseball being allowed to take the nickname Bluejays? Would a Hamilton NHL franchise be permitted to call itself the Hamilton Mapleleafs? Of course not. The Roughrider/Rough Rider clash always made me think of the CFL as an amatuer league. I still don't know how it ever came to be, I'm just glad it's no longer the case.
