The 2009 FedEx BCS National Championship takes place in January and Super Bowl XLIII takes place in February, but why wait until the New Year for championship caliber football?
The Canadian Football League (CFL) playoffs reach their climax this Sunday with the playing of the 96th Grey Cup championship game in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
The Eastern Division champion Montreal Alouettes will literally be the home team against the Western representative Calgary Stampeders.
As is usually the case in North American football, the quarterbacks take center stage with Montreal’s Anthony Calvillo and Calgary’s Henry Burris. Both are nominees for the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player of the Year award.
With 5,633 passing yards, a completion percentage of 69.2 percent, 43 TD passes (tops in the CFL), and a passer rating of 107.2, Calvillo guided the Als to an 11–7 record, good enough for top spot in the East.
Calvillo has been consistently one of the CFL’s best passers with 58,683 career passing yards. His sharp stats from 2008 can also be attributed to his wife Alexia’s return to health. She was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes) last year and beat the disease.
For Calvillo, 36, an Outstanding Player (OP) award coupled with a Grey Cup ring would be a great way to ride off into the sunset, and the local Montreal media is speculating as much.
“A Cup for Calvillo’s swan song,” a headline read in the Montreal Gazette.
A championship ring and OP award would also do Burris good. He completed 64.5 percent of passes for 5,094 yards, complementing that with 39 passing TDs, a rating of 103.8, 595 rushing yards, and 3 rushing TDs in the regular season.
Calgary was best in the West with a regular season record of 13–5.
Unlike Calvillo, who is 1–4 in Grey Cups, Burris has been there twice as a second-stringer but has yet to start in the big game—there’s nothing like being the No. 1 QB.
In the 1998 Grey Cup, Burris watched current Tampa Bay Bucs QB Jeff Garcia march Calgary down the field in what would lead to a game-winning field goal. Burris would like to work his own brand of magic on Sunday.
“I was able to see what it took for Jeff Garcia to win a Grey Cup [with game-winning drive in ‘98]. . .” Burris explained to the Canadian Press.
“I was able to see those things and kind of give myself an idea of what it was like, so that’s going to help me out in my preparation.”
Burris has been considered, like NFL QB Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins, a talented QB who couldn’t win the big one. The Stamps’ 22–18 win over the B.C. Lions in the West Division championship helped exorcise some of those demons.
“So, it can finally be written and uttered with a certain measure of authority: Henry Burris is a winner,” exclaimed George Johnson of the Calgary Herald.
In Calgary’s win over B.C., Burris completed 63 percent of his passes for 236 yards and one TD with one INT.
The Montreal Alouettes played the crossover team, the Edmonton Eskimos, in the Eastern Final and in a 36–26 win, Calvillo threw for 295 yards, completing 62.5 percent of his passes for one TD.
Outstanding Player nominees and the two top teams in the league, a championship game does make.
The Canadian Football League (CFL) playoffs reach their climax this Sunday with the playing of the 96th Grey Cup championship game in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium.
The Eastern Division champion Montreal Alouettes will literally be the home team against the Western representative Calgary Stampeders.
As is usually the case in North American football, the quarterbacks take center stage with Montreal’s Anthony Calvillo and Calgary’s Henry Burris. Both are nominees for the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player of the Year award.
With 5,633 passing yards, a completion percentage of 69.2 percent, 43 TD passes (tops in the CFL), and a passer rating of 107.2, Calvillo guided the Als to an 11–7 record, good enough for top spot in the East.
Calvillo has been consistently one of the CFL’s best passers with 58,683 career passing yards. His sharp stats from 2008 can also be attributed to his wife Alexia’s return to health. She was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma (cancer of the lymph nodes) last year and beat the disease.
For Calvillo, 36, an Outstanding Player (OP) award coupled with a Grey Cup ring would be a great way to ride off into the sunset, and the local Montreal media is speculating as much.
“A Cup for Calvillo’s swan song,” a headline read in the Montreal Gazette.
A championship ring and OP award would also do Burris good. He completed 64.5 percent of passes for 5,094 yards, complementing that with 39 passing TDs, a rating of 103.8, 595 rushing yards, and 3 rushing TDs in the regular season.
Calgary was best in the West with a regular season record of 13–5.
Unlike Calvillo, who is 1–4 in Grey Cups, Burris has been there twice as a second-stringer but has yet to start in the big game—there’s nothing like being the No. 1 QB.
In the 1998 Grey Cup, Burris watched current Tampa Bay Bucs QB Jeff Garcia march Calgary down the field in what would lead to a game-winning field goal. Burris would like to work his own brand of magic on Sunday.
“I was able to see what it took for Jeff Garcia to win a Grey Cup [with game-winning drive in ‘98]. . .” Burris explained to the Canadian Press.
“I was able to see those things and kind of give myself an idea of what it was like, so that’s going to help me out in my preparation.”
Burris has been considered, like NFL QB Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins, a talented QB who couldn’t win the big one. The Stamps’ 22–18 win over the B.C. Lions in the West Division championship helped exorcise some of those demons.
“So, it can finally be written and uttered with a certain measure of authority: Henry Burris is a winner,” exclaimed George Johnson of the Calgary Herald.
In Calgary’s win over B.C., Burris completed 63 percent of his passes for 236 yards and one TD with one INT.
The Montreal Alouettes played the crossover team, the Edmonton Eskimos, in the Eastern Final and in a 36–26 win, Calvillo threw for 295 yards, completing 62.5 percent of his passes for one TD.
Outstanding Player nominees and the two top teams in the league, a championship game does make.
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