2020 schedule

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B.C.FAN
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The 2020 CFL schedule has been released.

The Lions get 6 Saturday home games, 3 Fridays beginning with the preseason game June 5, and one Thursday on July 23 vs. Montreal. Two of the Saturday home games have 4 p.m. starts, the home opener against Edmonton on June 27 and the Thanksgiving weekend game against Calgary on Oct. 10.

Unlike the past 2 years, there are only 4 games after Labour Day: Saturday, Sept. 12 against Toronto, Saturday, Sept. 26 against Saskatchewan, Saturday, Oct. 10 against Calgary and Friday, Oct. 23 against Winnipeg.

The Lions get 3 visits from Calgary, including preseason. All other teams visit just once.

The Lions open with back-to-back Thursday road games in Edmonton and Calgary before the regular-season home opener against Edmonton on Saturday, June 27. That's an important chance to prove themselves to skeptical fans hoping for a rebound season, but it won't be easy.

In a rare change, the Lions don't wrap up the regular season at home. Their final game is Friday, Oct. 30 in Hamilton.

Matt Baker breaks down the Lions' schedule at bclions.com:
https://www.bclions.com/2019/12/15/brea ... -schedule/

Full 2020 CFL schedule:
https://www.cfl.ca/schedule/?season=2020
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B.C.FAN wrote:
Mon Dec 16, 2019 9:20 am
The Lions get 3 visits from Calgary, including preseason. All other teams visit just once.

The Lions open with back-to-back Thursday road games in Edmonton and Calgary before the regular-season home opener against Edmonton on Saturday, June 27. That's an important chance to prove themselves to skeptical fans hoping for a rebound season, but it won't be easy.
BC finishes their 2 game season series with EDM June 27th, and don't play a team other than EDM or CGY until July 4th on the road vs SSK.. Pretty wacky scheduling, considering how important this could be to playoff positioning.
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SammyGreene
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Another West loaded start with 5 of their first 6 games, including 4 on the road. It basically buried them last year so they better be firing on all cylinders coming out of the gate.

So from Aug. 15 to Oct. 23 they play 6 of 8 games at home (over 10 weeks with 2 byes) and all 6 are back-to-back games. Weird and not great for casual sales.
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David
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Not much meat on the bone to get casuals / fence-sitters fired up. It's like we're feeling the wrath of Ambrosie for all the bad s*** I've been writing about him. :rotf:

One Rider visit the whole year. Ending the season against an Eastern opponent (Hamilton). WTF??

What about playing Ottawa at home on July 11, a Saturday night, then 5 days(!) later we're in Winnipeg to take on the Grey Cup Champs?

Our first bye isn't until the week of August 16th (then two more in successive months).


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B.C.FAN
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The Lions play 10 straight weeks before getting their first bye. All three byes are in the second half of the season, and they all come between back-to-back home games. There are no home games on consecutive weekends.

Overall, I give the schedule a thumbs up. I’d prefer to get a couple of byes during the summer and an extra home game after Labour Day when interest is highest (barring another 1-10 start) but as it is the Lions play only six games after Labour Day,
Including four at home.

I’d also prefer to see more divisional games but that won’t happen with the current schedule format. The Lions had two home games against the Riders last year so they’ll probably have to rotate through the other Western teams before getting two against the Riders again.
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Odds were very good that the 5 post-Labour Day home tilts we've enjoyed in the past couple of years would be reduced to 4. With Ambrosia-Beetle getting his way and bumping the season up a week coupled with the latest possible Labour Day (Sept 7) there are only 8 weeks left to the schedule after Labour Day. With the byes added in BC has only 6 games remaining after Labour Day.
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What scares me most is the fact that of those 6 road games in the first 9 games 5 are played out on the prairies. Their entire West Div road schedule is complete by August 8th (Week 9). That's a vicious road gauntlet to run for a team that desperately needs to get off to a good start. IMO if they can't pull off at least 2 wins out on the prairies they may have dug themselves too deep a hole to dig out of once the schedule starts tilting back in their favour.
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SammyGreene
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Hambone wrote:
Mon Dec 16, 2019 12:03 pm
What scares me most is the fact that of those 6 road games in the first 9 games 5 are played out on the prairies. Their entire West Div road schedule is complete by August 8th (Week 9). That's a vicious road gauntlet to run for a team that desperately needs to get off to a good start. IMO if they can't pull off at least 2 wins out on the prairies they may have dug themselves too deep a hole to dig out of once the schedule starts tilting back in their favour.
That is a brutal stretch in any given year never mind coming off a season going 0-10 against the West. It is my fear as well. They have to be in shouting distance of a playoff spot before that stretch of 6 of 8 games at home or they are going to be a very tough sell.

When were our last wins at Commonwealth, Mosiac and Investor's anyways? I know we won at McMahon late in 2018.
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SammyGreene wrote:
Mon Dec 16, 2019 1:56 pm
Hambone wrote:
Mon Dec 16, 2019 12:03 pm
What scares me most is the fact that of those 6 road games in the first 9 games 5 are played out on the prairies. Their entire West Div road schedule is complete by August 8th (Week 9). That's a vicious road gauntlet to run for a team that desperately needs to get off to a good start. IMO if they can't pull off at least 2 wins out on the prairies they may have dug themselves too deep a hole to dig out of once the schedule starts tilting back in their favour.
That is a brutal stretch in any given year never mind coming off a season going 0-10 against the West. It is my fear as well. They have to be in shouting distance of a playoff spot before that stretch of 6 of 8 games at home or they are going to be a very tough sell.

When were our last wins at Commonwealth, Mosiac and Investor's anyways? I know we won at McMahon late in 2018.
The Lions last won in 2013 in Edmonton, 2016 in Saskatchewan, 2017 in Winnipeg and 2018 in Calgary.
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David wrote:
Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:42 am
Ending the season against an Eastern opponent (Hamilton). WTF??
For whatever reason, the league has abandoned the tradition of scheduling regional rivalries down the stretch. Hamilton finishes against Edmonton, Saskatchewan and B.C. The Eskimos finish with three games against the East. Hamilton broadcaster Marshall Ferguson breaks down the league-wide numbers:

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I thought the whole point of playing a divisional opponent on the last game, if not down the stretch, was the significance of the "four-pointer."

So if we, say, were one point behind the Esks for the final playoff spot or crossover and played them in Week 21 (our 18th game of the season), it would be compelling viewing and a potentially larger gate (similar to MLB abandoning the interlocking schedule down the stretch).

Playing a historically low-drawing club instead of a rival to close out the schedule and the added travel so close to the playoffs makes little sense to me, especially if that last game is meaningless in the standings!


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Perhaps some of the thinking is that the closer to the end of the season you get the more games there are that carry no weight in playoff races. Weren't all playoff positions set last year entering the final season. East playoff positioning was set with 3 or 4 weeks to go. Of course with an odd number of teams in the West somebody has to play somebody in the East unless they want to rotate all byes through the West in the final weeks. In those respects is it best to have those key rivalry matchups in the final weeks when many games will be meaningless for at least one team? Or is it better to intensify the divisional games from say 2nd week in September until Thanksgiving when hopefully at least 7 teams, better yet more, are still in a playoff chase?
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Hambone
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David wrote:
Tue Dec 17, 2019 10:05 am
I thought the whole point of playing a divisional opponent on the last game, if not down the stretch, was the significance of the "four-pointer."

So if we, say, were one point behind the Esks for the final playoff spot or crossover and played them in Week 21 (our 18th game of the season), it would be compelling viewing and a potentially larger gate (similar to MLB abandoning the interlocking schedule down the stretch).

Playing a historically low-drawing club instead of a rival to close out the schedule and the added travel so close to the playoffs makes little sense to me, especially if that last game is meaningless in the standings!


DH :cool:
Schedule makers do look like geniuses when a head to head matchup on the final weekend can be make or break for winning a division, hosting a playoff game or simply making the playoffs. It's magical when it occurs but it ever so rarely seems to happen. I can't recall as a ST holder the last time I went to the Lions' season finale. It's been a few seasons. Travel costs are a factor for me but had the games meant something I would have been there. Other factors that could play in might be tied to attendance and weather. Typically attendances do fade in the outdoor venues in the fall and can plummet when weather turns bad regardless of game significance. Maybe there's a bit of thought about why put our best draws at the risk of the weather?
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SammyGreene
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Can someone refresh my memory? Was it the last CBA that 3 bye weeks came into play? Why does the CFL need 3 for an 18-game schedule and the NFL has just 1 for 16 games?

Marshall Ferguson's chart is great. For some teams to have 2 byes before the Lions even have their first is ridiculous. And 3 byes in the last 11 weeks of the season is ludicrous.
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I was thinking as I was posting something on Esksfans after getting a lot of sympathy there for the brutal schedule gauntlet the Lions have to run through in the first half of the season. The reality is this year's first half isn't much different than last year. Overall it seems to appease the general desire to have as many home games after Labour Day as reasonably fits with preferably Saturday night time slots. We seem toget our wish in that regard. However is it maybe time to suck it up and ask for a more even mix even if it means fewer games after Labour Day and more in the middle of the summer. Personally I'm not big on summer games strictly because it means hotels are ridiculously expensive.

However the schedules as we've had the last couple of years make it damned near impossible to come out of the chute with any momentum heading towards the 2nd half. And of course a lousy record going into the second means the fans who started out happy with the schedule for the post Labour Day home dates become unhappy because of the team's record. Maybe it's time to take one for the team and ask for a more balanced schedule. The one of the past couple of years is shooting the football team in the foot.
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