The Canadian Football League looks poised to make the biggest fumble in its generally long and storied history.
Presently the league appears to be kicking around the idea of lowering the Canadian ratio from seven starters to five.
One of the core concepts of the CFL is its Canadian content. The league should not want to be some north of the border American football refuge in the guise of a Canadian league. It should forever champion the Canadian game, and by extension Canadian players.
This is not a unique take on a national league.
Most European hockey leagues, such as those in Germany and Switzerland, generally have limits placed on the number of imports on a roster. They want their national leagues to be something a player in their countries can aspire to as a way to develop the sport from the grassroots to the professional level.
If you are a young hockey player in Munich, Germany, the dream of making the National Hockey League might simply be a dream too big to take on.
But, a spot on the Red Bulls Ice Hockey Club, the pro team in Munich in the German league is a dream they can envision.
That is where the Canadian content is important in the CFL.
As a story by Yorkton This Week recently documented Yorkton’s own Layne Hull attended a recent league combine, his mind set on making the CFL. The ridiculous ratio change would chop 18 spots that Canadians now hold, pushing players like Hull that much further from playing in a league that in their own country should be welcoming of talent from Canada.
I get that finding Canadian talent is likely harder for CFL management, coaches and scouts, most drawn from the U.S. where their contacts will be stronger, but that is a weak reason for changing the rule. Teams just need to work better at keeping an eye on the college game in this country to evaluate talent.
There will always be players such as Taylor Loffler, Nic Demski, Brad Sinopoli, Andrew Harris, Jon Cornish, Ray Elgaard and dozens of others. These are the players that young players, like those in our Yorkton Minor Football program can look too as inspiration, knowing if others have made it to the pro level, they can too.
It just takes a dedicated eye by scouts in this country to find them.
There has also been talk the ratio reduction is in part to make room for an international player, someone gleaned from the recent efforts of CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie to make connections with football in countries from Mexico to Germany.
Interestingly, the German Football League (GFL), the elite league for American football in Germany, which was formed in 1979, started out with no restriction on how many foreigners a team could field. There was however, a stipulation that every team had to field a minimum of three German nationals at any time. That was soon changed, and the allowed number of foreigners on the field for a team at any given time was reduced to five, and then in 1982, this number was reduced to four, in 1983 to three and, by 1986, only two were allowed on the field for a team at any given time.
So why is the CFL going backwards?
If the league wants to attract players through what Ambrosie has termed CFL 2.0, the connections to other countries, by all means, but designate that spot from the import side of the equation.
Of course the simplest solution to the quandary is to expand the CFL roster, leaving the Canadian ratio as it is. Adding two players, the logical expansion in my mind, provides for a designated ‘international’ on a roster, adds to the American talent pool, and helps alleviate players being forced into playing out of position, or both ways at times, which potentially leads to more injuries. There is already a practice roster where players are parked. Teams are paying those players, so why not have access to them in a game situation.
So far Ambrosie has hit on just about everything he has done, from his celebrating diversity initiative, to eyeing Halifax expansion to CFL 2.0, hopefully following all that positive effort he won’t let the league go down the road of making the game on the field less Canadian.
