With 2:05 left in the game, it’s 3rd down and the Cats are punting to the blue team. The play before (and this is where my memory is perhaps a little hazy) was a failed running attempt to get the first down. As I recall it was not an incomplete pass or a run out of bounds. The referee blows his whistle but the clock does not start to run until the snap of the ball.
Am I guilty of old timers disease? Was the second down play either an incomplete pass or a run out of bounds? Does anyone else recall this set of events, or have the game pvr’d as I so obviously should have? What the heck happened?
The blew team called time out after a greased lightning (Chevon Walker) run off tackle left. Mystery solved. The reason I was confused at the game was I didn't hear the time out call by the ref (the sound system (and my ears, lol) is old after all) and the scoreboard continued to show they had a time out remaining after the subsequent punt.
Just in case you weren’t confused enough, the ref pointed the wrong way when he announced the timeout, so if you didn’t hear it (I didn’t either, I think his mic was working for the TV broadcast but not through the loudspeakers) it looked like Hamilton called it, although it was obvious it had to be toronto calling it at that point.
Near the end of the game, just before our failed third down gamble, the referee signalled a time out. The clock didn't stop, so they reset it to 31 seconds. (Another indication that someone has the job of watching the clock to make sure it stops in time.) Then, after a long break, the clock started when the ref blew the play in.
CFL Live Play indicates that the time out was charged to Hamilton, but that doesn't make sense, given that they were trying to run the clock down. Also, as the clock started before the snap, it couldn't have been a called time out. Was there an injured player on the field, and if so, who was it? The broadcast didn't show one.