12/20/24
June 16, 2017
The 13th Annual chicobangs Memorial SpoFi CFL Pick 'Em: It was way back in 1866 when young Tommy Football of Spitting Horse, New Brunswick became the first person to punt on third down. Of course, back then “punting” was a type of ballroom dance, and “third down” was slang for a venereal disease, but that memorable action lay the foundation for Canadian football as we know it today. Join us as we honour Tommy’s memory by picking every darn single CFL game of the season.
posted by DrJohnEvans to fantasy at 03:04 PM - 18 comments
Saskatchewan by 3
Ottawa by 3
B.C. by 1
Toronto by 6
posted by bender at 03:40 PM on June 16, 2017
Montreal by 6
Calgary by 16
B.C. by 6
Toronto by 17
posted by tommybiden at 05:46 PM on June 16, 2017
Montreal by 14
Calgary by 17
Edmonton by 6
Hamilton by 10
posted by ic23b at 08:55 PM on June 16, 2017
Montreal by 6
Calgary by 21
Edmonton by 26
Hamilton by 17
posted by jagsnumberone at 12:23 AM on June 17, 2017
Here's the TV schedule for TSN, RDS (including the ROUGE et NOIR) and ESPN. ESPN3 (online) is to carry all games.
Montreal by 10
Ottawa by 2
Edmonton by 11
Toronto by 13
posted by jjzucal at 10:16 PM on June 17, 2017
ESPN3 (online) is to carry all games
Always competitive, games usually decided in last 2 minutes, and almost always a new league champion every year. Hard to believe in a 9 team league.
posted by cixelsyd at 12:14 AM on June 18, 2017
I have to get these in tonight. I'm going in for minor surgery tomorrow (sebaceous cyst on the back of my neck), and I will likely be off line for a day or 2. Here are the picks:
Alouettes are a bit further along in the rebuilding process than is Saskatchewan. Montreal by 7
Stampeders will be very good, but they will need a game or 2 to hit their stride. Redblacks might be the class of the East. Ottawa by 6
Eskimos have not taken a backward step, while BC has not moved forward by any great measure. Edmonton by 14
Argonauts have their house back. This might be enough to turn the whole thing around. Toronto by 6
posted by Howard_T at 10:59 PM on June 19, 2017
It's baaaaaack!
Montreal by 7
Calgary by 9
BC by 3
Hamilton by 4
posted by Reever at 05:05 PM on June 20, 2017
whoops I'm late, just thought about the pool but have no idea who is leading the first game!
Monte by three, take it or not
Calgary by three
BC by three
argos by two
posted by argoal at 08:45 PM on June 21, 2017
The first game is tomorrow.
posted by rcade at 08:54 PM on June 21, 2017
Saskatchewan by 7
Ottawa by 3
B.C. by 11
Hhhhamilton by 21
posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:03 AM on June 22, 2017
DJE--I think you've got the 2016 Montreal preview linked there. No matter, it won't change my performance.
Montreal by 8
Ottawa by 10
B.C by 4
Hamilton by 7
On edit after reading all of the previews--is it only 2016 in Canada? Is that a metric system thing?
posted by tahoemoj at 03:17 PM on June 22, 2017
rcade: Has the results for the NBA playoff pick'em been posted yet?
posted by ic23b at 05:09 PM on June 22, 2017
On edit after reading all of the previews--is it only 2016 in Canada? Is that a metric system thing?
Yikes, I pulled all those from CFL.ca's "recent news" feed.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:32 AM on June 23, 2017
Cal by 4; BC by 3; Ham by 4
posted by JPR at 07:10 PM on June 23, 2017
Has the results for the NBA playoff pick'em been posted yet?
I'm scrambling on a book deadline. I'll try to get that posted over the weekend along with another late contest I won't mention. Sorry about the delay.
My CFL picks:
Calgary by 8
Edmonton by 3
Hamilton by 6
posted by rcade at 07:20 PM on June 23, 2017
THE PICK 'EM - What we do
It's a Canadian tradition: every June, we celebrate the reappearance of the sun by drop-kicking a frozen pig through the last remaining pair of icicles. Then we go back inside to watch football until there's more than 6 hours of sunlight each day (July 27 through August 8). We kill time by picking winners and spreads for each game. Why not join us?
THE SEASON - When we do it
The season kicks off this Thursday night and runs for 20 weeks through the summer. There are generally four games per week, mostly running from Thursday to Sunday.
If you're in Canada, you'll find the games on TSN. If you're in the States or elsewhere, there's usually a pretty dependable ESPN and SiriusXM schedule, but it does not appear to have been released yet. Stay tuned!
THE RULES - How we do it
Here's how it works. You pick who you think will win, and by how much. You then get points based on the result:
What's the Margin of Error?
It's a window around the spread that's defined as
spread - round(0.3 * spread) <= Margin of Error <= spread + round(0.3 * spread)So you can get rewarded for being close to the spread even if you're not spot-on. The bigger the spread, the bigger the margin of error, so you don't have to be as accurate when predicting a blowout as you would when predicting a close game. Here are some examples:
So if you picked Toronto by 15, here's how you'd fare given certain outcomes:
Any questions?
THE GAMES, WEEK ONE - Where we start
In lieu of attempting to sum up each team's status in a single sentence, for this opening week I'm just linking to season preview pages for each of 'em.
All times are EDT.
Saskatchewan Roughriders (Preview) @ Montreal Alouettes (Preview) - Thursday, June 22, 7:30pm
Calgary Stampeders (Preview) @ Ottawa Redblacks (Preview) - Friday, June 22, 4:00pm
Edmonton Eskimos (Preview) @ B.C. Lions (Preview) - Saturday, June 24, 10:00pm
Hamilton Tiger-Cats (Preview) @ Toronto Argonauts (Preview) - Sunday, June 25, 4:00pm
Good luck!