I think it sucks with the Bombers already done with the Red Blacks and Argos. Sask getting ready for BC for the third time in four weeks. Calgary playing Edmonton three of the next four. The list goes on.
I like a spread out schedule that maintains interest in the league not just the division. Playing a team twice right after they lose a key player skews the playing field at times. Beat them in the first half of the season and in the second half and you’ve likely got the true better team. Just saying.
Or maybe steal an idea from the Premier league and have two seasons each year with a balanced schedule. All kinds of good “never out of it” playoff chances that way.
Just seems the CFL schedule has lacked imagination for years. Maybe time to replace the old guy that does it up the same as he has for the past thirty. All good in his world.
But if they replaced that “old guy”, they’d have to buy all new floppy disks to upgrade to Tandy Schedulemaker '92.
I don’t like the double season idea, but I agree there should be fewer back-to-back (and no 3-in-4-weeks) matchups. And definitely they should try to arrange interdivisional matchups so that they happen once in the first 9 games and once in the second 9.
I know it can be a challenge to juggle all the available dates for each of the nine stadia, but I’m sure they can do a better job of it than they have been doing.
I wouldn’t mind a rule that you can’t play any team from the other division twice (e.g. HAM and SSK) before you’ve played all the teams in your own division at least once (e.g. HAM and OTT have not yet played).
One thing that should be clear to everyone is the league sets a schedule that suits themself, not their live customers and not potential customers. For example, the Tiger Cats are 3 weeks in a row on the road in September against western division teams and 32 days after their last home game (Labour Day) return home to play against who? Yes, a western team once more. No home game to attend for 32 days, no games against eastern rivals for 49 days (Sept 2 - Oct 19)
I always assumed they just stopped as soon as they got to a schedule that worked within the various constraints (TSN parameters, other uses of stadiums, Labour Day traditions, bye week spacing, etc). Alternative being to keep on working at it until you meet the minimum requirements and come up with a schedule that is more balanced competitively.
This is about accurate; scheduling is a complicated puzzle that has a bunch of basic constraints controlling when games can happen, including a lot of the things you listed. A person could argue what factor we should optimize for the most (team rest / competitiveness, or selling the max amount of tickets, or getting the best possible broadcast viewership) but in reality I think your options get pretty limited once the basic constraints are in place.
Ultimately we output a couple hundred variations of a schedule and discuss them internally + with the teams/venues + with TSN before making a decision. Computers crunch away for hours on this; it’s definitely moved away from being a paper-based exercise.
The schedule maker’s name is Trevor Hardy.It’s easy to criticize but it’s not an easy job.
He is also responsible for the cap management of this league.He does the best he can
with the parameters presented by the PTB.
I understand that there are restraints, but man this schedule gets a lot wrong.
Three games during Labour Day Weekend
No Thanksgiving games (first time in CFL history)
Three teams on a bye in week 2
Ottawa having zero home games in October (33 days between home games)
Aforementioned Hamilton with 32 days between home games
BC with 26 days between home games and another 28 days between another set of home games
Overall, six teams (BC, EDM, SSK, HAM, TOR, OTT) with three-straight road games (when it used to be a rarity)
Two Thursday double-headers (both sets overlap)
It gets some things right like spaced out bye weeks and fairly standardized scheduling (Thurs, Fri, Sat games in summer; Fri and Sat in the Fall, 7pm Saturday starts). The last three weeks of the season featuring inter-divisional match ups is great. It just feels like when the league makes some some things better, it has to make other things worse. Can’t we just have a better schedule?
And then Sask and Edmonton play back to back last 2 weeks of the season. A pretty good chance that they could meet in round 1 of playoffs, so that would make it 3 straight against each other.
Even though they should be great games with playoff implications, every game between rivals carries the same level of importance be it game 1 or 18. An injury at the wrong time can turn a season. To catch a team in that situation twice in a row is a huge benefit and not truly reflective of reality.
Back to backs suck in a nine team league.
Maybe a more even schedule could be part of the one division conversation that pops up every few years. Who knows?
No offence or disrespect intended toward Mr Hardy. An easy job to criticize indeed. Seems overloaded to be responsible for cap management and scheduling given the stories of Kavis and the doggy bags. Scheduling being an off season thing would factor there.
Perhaps these comments / concerns are something Mr Hardy needs to be aware of. Schedule can be a hook to lure fans and not just a list of games that have to be played.
One small part of the big picture. Enjoy the long weekend. Play safe.
Three bye weeks is ridiculous. I understand they are doing it to help make sure there are less short weeks for teams. But thats a different headache for a 9 team league until team 10 happens.
Also they started to begin the season earlier. To get the GC earlier for weather reasons.
But adding a 3rd bye week cancels that out.
Thursday nite games were part of it do to TV. Now there are no more Sunday games. So that sorta cancels that out.
