I have a question about this scenario that never happened before. Right now, Edmonton and Toronto is tied in term of points. Edmonton is 4th in the West Division while Toronto is 2nd in the East. What if Edmonton and Saskatchewan get ahead of Toronto and Toronto finish 2nd place in the east while while having lowest point than Edmonton or Saskatchewan.
Who gets its home-field advantage if Edmonton gets 18 points and finished 4th place in West while Toronto gets 16 points and finished 2nd place in the East?
Edmonton crossed over to the East Division playoff bracket but get its home-field advantage and wins their home game and go to Montreal for the East Finals or Toronto still get its home game for the East Semi-finals regardless how they finish their season in term of points?
Finally, the question is, does Toronto deserve a home game in the first round of the playoffs if the rules is firm and award the 2nd place team in the east to host a playoff home game no matter how suck they are if they finished 2nd place in the East compared to the West Division?
Whatever the question of whether or not Toronto would deserve the home game or not, they would get it.
The crossover team is always the visitor, regardless of record.
Even if Edmonton had a better record than Toronto and Montreal, the ESF would be played in TO, and the EF in Montreal.
Frankly, I'm not sure anybody in the East deserves a home game. Nevertheless Montreal is going to get one, and Toronto is currently the most likely to get the other one. hit-em-hard has the rule right though, Edmonton will be the road team if they crossover.
At least they'll get in, rather then how lame it'd be if they didn't when a far worse East team got in.
Yeah none of the East teams have been really consistently impressive this year. I don't think there's any question that Hamilton is the most dangerous, but thankfully they're also the most inconsistent. Montreal has been the best of the bunch, but they haven't been up to their usual dominance. They're just one of the middle of the pack teams this year.
Sure LOL ! The Riders and Eskimos don’t even have .100 record in Montreal the last decade and the Melon mullets won’t be able to invade the Big O even if they wanted to. Crossover team is DOA if they even make it to Montreal IMO.
None of the western teams have won in montreal this year so far with Edmonton playing in montreal next week andthey may win if the als rest the remnants of their starting offense but I doubt very much any team hoping to contend for the grey cup is going to be able to avoid BC as they seem like a lock for the grey cup game. So the question is would the esks and riders rather play montreal or calgary. Looking at the two teams in the standings Id say neither is a particularly appealing opponent as they are almost identical there
Well. Rider fans can take over stadiums in Alberta, they even call them home games. They won’t be able to do that in Montreal. Too far, too expensive, too risky (buy ahead of time) and there likely won’t be enough tickets availabe. Also the Riders have beaten BC twice this year and lost to Montreal twice. How anyone could think they have an easier path through the East is not thinking things clearly.
Well here's the way I see it since Winnipeg and Hamilton are playing for keeps in the cellar game next week and the Eskimo schedule.
For whichever team wins that cellar game, we have an interesting scenario.
Unless Montreal screws up badly at home to Edmonton, Calgary will be in an interesting position in the last game to knock Edmonton out of the playoffs so as to afford a chance to the winning team of Winnipeg or Hamilton next week to make the playoffs by winning in the final week.
Hamilton plays Toronto before Calgary plays Edmonton in the last week of the regular season as will also be televised in the US, so going into the final game Calgary may have Hamilton as the prime contender.
And if Winnipeg wins the cellar game, what incentive will Montreal have against Winnipeg on the road? Exactly!
Knowing those bojacks in Calgary, I doubt they'll rest their starters in the last game if it comes down to it. I can't say I would blame them as we would do the same. This game will be televised in the US too.
And Montreal has absolutely zero incentive to play their starters on the road against Winnipeg.
Given the schedule, to me it's not looking good for the crossover.
The cross over may look apealing from the semi-final angle for the Riders (2-0 or 1-1 vs Argos and 1-2 vs Calgary) but after that do we really want to play Montreal (0-2) on the season granted Durant was hurt for the first one. Sure we lose out (not on purpose that’s totall not Chamblin’s philosiphy and riding into the playoffs on a 4 game slide isn’t ideal. I say we try to win out (although I see a 9-9 record win vs toronto lose @ bc) take on calgary in the semi and go from there. save ourselves the milage going across the country.
Montreal isn’t known for resting their starters, though. They have the bye week, and they’re not playing that well right now. It seems likely to me that they’ll play whoever is healthy (including AC) to try and get their rhythm and timing back before the week off.
I can see some guys not making the trip to Winnipeg and AC backing up Adrian for it but that’s about it. This week in Edmonton at home, its just another game nothing will change.
I don't get it. Riders are 0-2 against Montreal this year with a recent history of losing to them in the playoffs, whereas they have two wins against BC and have their own history of upsetting Calgary in the playoffs, and you want to cross over to the East? :?
The Als have benefited from playing in a division that has been on average ,second rate for the longest time. Hamilton had a awful 10 year stretch,the Bombers this year were terrible and hit miss every season. The Argo's over all have not been very good. Making the playoffs for the Als in the East is a joke with usually 2 East teams being brutal.If they were to play in the West , they never would have come close to all their Grey Cup appearences. Their Grey Cup record being under 500 , reflects this. They would be another solid team in the West and would be in tough to get get to the Grey Cup like the other 4 teams.
This game will be televised in the US too.