Best news I've heard in a long time. The 'Cats will now start the required 7 Canadian players, and no more. Gone are the days when the 'Cats would start 9 or 10, or dress, on game day, more Canadians than required (laughable). I love great Canadian players as much as the next guy, but the fact is import players are generally better than non-import players. When you start more Canadian players than is required in the CFL, then you are just asking for trouble. Way to go Obie.
Even if they went to MAC?
Yes, even when they when to Mac! 
Obie IS bang on here – more to the point, his remark that if you are an American player in the CFL, you’d better be capable of starting. Absolutely the bottom line from a competitive standpoint.
If a Canadian is better than a Yank, start him. The point being, your Canadians are gems. Whoever of those guys starts has to pull weight. The Barrenechea -to-Moreno transition is one prime example. Auggie is a good depth guy to be sure, but…
On all great championship teams, the Canadian content jumps off the page. It just happens to be a smaller rivet than bygone days.
Oski Wee Wee,
Doesn’t apply to MAC players they should be given life time contracts with guaranteed playing time writen in so that they don’t fall victim to the dictator Lancaster and his evil agenda towards former MAC players and coaches.
LOL funny stuff!Even if they went to mac!LMAO
nothing wrong with what he's saying.
there was the same theory in the NHL with European players back in the day, if you're not good enough to star over here, you're not worth the trouble of drafting.
Canadian players are a different story, you can get away with having a slug here and there so long as they don't have to start, because they HAVE to be here as per the ratio (which i like)
Imports on the other hand, there's no set number of imports that MUST be on the team, there's no excuse for signing an import that you don't think will be able to STAR in this league. (eventually)
re earl wrote-Canadian players are a different story, you can get away with having a slug here and there so long as they don't have to start, because they HAVE to be here as per the ratio (which i like) ---------- Sorry i cant agree, there are enouph solid Canadian players, what your saying degrades the whole CFL, It may have been that way (ancient history)and that's why the cfl was week in the east, but these days that is no longer the case. Besides there have been many Imports who have played out there wanna be dreams up north because they can because of the import ratio, . True there are not enough starting caliber Canadians to fill 8 rosters,. But IMO more than 56 players in total!!
The last time I looked this was called the Canadian Football League. I am tired of imports being called for no yards on punt returns, watching the ball bounce waiting for it to be whistled dead. If you want more Americans watch the NFL and leave our game alone. You want also rans up here, because if an American shows any promise he is immediately whisked away to the NFL. Thanks for making your position clear Obie, it hardens my decision to cancel my season tickets and watch Canadian players play Canadian football at Mac. And it’s a hell of lot more entertaining than the Taafe slumberfests that we got last year.
His point was we shouldn’t have Americans backing up Canadians because that’s a waste and that we shouldnt be scouting for american backups but American starters.
If Obie sets up Charlie with enough CFL read imports
so only two Canadians need to start on defence next year
some of the defensive ones will be trade bait for Obie.
The need to trade some of these guys
is not an exercise in fantasy.
It's not something I ever dwell on myself
I am surprised I haven't heard some suggestions
from people on ticats.ca who are into that.
Which top flight CFL ready import
DL, OLB or one or or two d-backs
now on contract with other teams
could we trade the guys below for
to get 10 much better players?
Here are some of our regular
Canadian starters on Defence
Jermaine Reid,
Clinton Wayne.
Nautyn McKay-Loescher.
also these guys got some starts last year.
Sandy Beveridge,
Ray Mariuz,
Richard Karikari,
Phil Gauthier,
Mike Roberts
and what about these guys
who didn't get any starts?
J.P. Bekasiak, Nick Kordic,
Sasha Glavic, Jason Nedd
Hi ronfromtigertown:
Just one point of clarification about J.P. Bekasiak. He started two games for the Ticats at defensive tackle in 2007 (Game #2 vs. Toronto on Jul 7/07 and Game #3 vs. Montreal on Jul 14/07). However, based on the philosophy of Bob O'Billovich and his strong desire to improve the pass rush, one wonders whether Bekasiak will be converted to the offensive line at the 2008 Ticat training camp.
I recall this was what the New York Jets tried to do with J.P during tryouts last spring. He certainly has the size for that kind of switch to be an interesting option, although he didn’t play OL in college.
Oski Wee Wee,
Your lost!!
Good job Obie now lets field a good product, best players start bottom line.
No problem here with the idea that you field the minimum number of Canadians, and then the best players after that, but if you read it the way you’ve described it, what do you do when you’ve got a real good Canadian starter (say a healthy Lumsden - although, being from Mac, he’s probably not qualified to play in this league and is probably still on the roster only because of Marshall’s continued control over football operations) but no quality Canadian backup - keep a poor Canadian backup to back him up because your philosophy will not allow you to back up a Canadian with an import?
Hey Mass, I think you were referring to Espo rather than myself, no? No prob my man.
I think most people would agree that the Canadian Football League is as much in the entertainment business as the cultural business. You start the best players you can under the rules, which are fine with me. Starting more Canadians just because you want to give Canadian kids a chance makes no sense if you don't have to and would result in an inferior lineup, this is professional football afterall, yes, with a Canadian flavour for history and culture sake but that's about it, not a Canadian all-you-can- eat feast. The fact is most, not all but most, Canadian kids gravitate towards hockey and this is where the majority of our best athletes end up. We need the Americans to make the league better talent if we want this league to be taken seriously by enough people to keep it at a respectful pro level.
Maybe we can apply to the League for an exemption on the ratio?
Then we can stack our roster with All-Americans and dominate like Shreveport, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Memphis, and Birmingham did in the 90s?
The thing is though bobby, part of the issue is the stigma that Canadian players have with a lot of Canadians that they aren't very good even if they are fairly decent. I remember talking with a couple of guys who don't give the CFL the time of day saying the CFL should be a farm system of the NFL then the talent would be a lot better. I said to him then our Canadian kids wouldn't get an opportunity to play as much. His answer - maybe they shouldn't get the chance to play if they get cut competing agains't the best players available. Ok, this guys doesn't "get" what the CFL is about in it's entirety, he's just another of those mindless types out there who can't see anything past their nose. But there are quite a few of these sorts in Canada as we know, if you played CIS then you are crap in their minds not worth following.
It’s funny when you hear one of those very same Football-Darwinists screaming that someone needs to artificially devalue the dollar and slow down the Canadian economy so that Hamilton can compete with Bangladesh for good-payin’ manufacturing jabs.
Very true section, very true.
Ya, it was me, hi!
anyway, all i’m saying is, there’s no reason for any american player up here to be less than starter calibre. same as Obie.
There’s such a huge talent pool to draw from, and we’re still bringing up guys that can’t cut it but we’re keeping them up here.
i don’t want to see more americans (i’d like to see less ideally) i’d just like to see BETTER americans.