2008 schedule

[mightybuck]

when does the new schedule come out?

[Rammer]

If we are lucky end of February, anything sooner would be a shocker.

[Ballistic Bob]

Phil posted the 2007 Sked Feb.16/07. We can only hope the same time for this year. BB

[Rammer]

Phil posted the 2007 Sked Feb.16/07. We can only hope the same time for this year. BB

I think that was an early edition that was slightly tweaked IIRC.

[Lions_Fan_4_Life]

In 2006, it was released in mid-January.

[Rammer]

In 2006, it was released in mid-January.

I think that it was late January for arguments sake, but you are right that there was one early one and then 07 was suppose to be as well, but got hung up with some teams (TO) not liking their play dates, or waiting for the Jays schedule....or such.

[Lions_Fan_4_Life]

In 2006, it was released in mid-January.

I think that it was late January for arguments sake, but you are right that there was one early one and then 07 was suppose to be as well, but got hung up with some teams (TO) not liking their play dates, or waiting for the Jays schedule....or such.

Luckily, the Jays is already set (with game times too) so that shouldn't be a problem.

[nelson95]

baseball scheds have been out for ages

at least the Ms has

[Lions_Fan_4_Life]

baseball scheds have been out for ages

at least the Ms has

Yeah, most were released in September or October, no real reason why the CFL should have to wait, except the BOG has to vote on it or at least look at it...

[Belize City Lion]

Do you think the release of the CFL schedule has an effect on season's ticket sales? Not that season's tickets are an option for me, but if I was in Vancouver I would probably want to wait to see the schedule to make sure it jived with my schedule before buying tickets, considering how inconsistent the league has been with game nights over the past few years.

Personally I would like to see the CFL simplify their scheduling to something very consistent year after year... Friday and Saturday night games before Labour Day, Friday & Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons after Labour Day (with the exception being a Monday game on Labour Day and Thanksgiving). Half the teams get a bye on the August long weekend, the other half get their byes on the following weekend (or perhaps BC and Montreal get their bye on Labour Day). No team should ever have a bye the first or last week of the season. The last week of the season should be played against teams in your division.

And the big change I would like to see is EVERY team plays one week on the road, the next week at home. No back to back home or away games. It's crazy how some teams can play on the road for two weeks and then get a bye, forcing their fans to go almost a month between home games.

Oh, and finally, the Grey Cup champion starts the season at home so their fans can enjoy a banner raising ceremony.

[B.C.FAN]

The league has done a good job with some aspects of scheduling in recent years. The Lions have had Friday and Saturday night home games almost exclusively in recent years, with perhaps one preseason or early-season Thursday game.

The bye weeks were co-ordinated last year, with the East and West teams having divisional midseason byes on successive weeks.

It's too much to ask to have home games on alternate weekends. Stadium availability (Blue Jays games in Toronto) and competing events (Stampede in Calgary) make it impractical. I would much rather have the Lions play one less home game before Labour Day to get an extra Saturday night date in September or October, but more than half the home schedule is always played in the dog days of summer.

[sj-roc]

And the big change I would like to see is EVERY team plays one week on the road, the next week at home. No back to back home or away games. It's crazy how some teams can play on the road for two weeks and then get a bye, forcing their fans to go almost a month between home games.

I agree with your point — it seems that we go road, road, bye, road, road around Labour Day in some years, for a six week stretch between home games — but I once thought this through a long time ago and realised it's not mathematically feasible to have every team alternate h/a/h/a/etc, even without the stadium availability/competing event issues raised by B.C.FAN.

To understand my point, suppose that in opening week, all four western teams are at home, and all four eastern teams are on the road (in western cities, naturally!), and then it flip-flops the rest of the year. That would mean that we would never see any intradivisional games at home (or on TV when we're on the road) because the other teams in our division will also all be playing home games (or will also all be on the road)!

More generally, no matter how you arrange this h/a/h/a/etc-type schedule for everybody, you would only get the same four opponents all year in a given stadium, and at least one of them would visit that stadium three times since each team has nine home games.

Surely all of this seems rather silly, in an eight team league with an 18-game schedule, so as fans we have to tolerate the irregularities you describe, in order to ensure each team a reasonable number of visits to each stadium. I've never studied a given year's schedule closely enough to comment, but I admit there could be room for improvement — although the h/a/h/a/etc scenario you propose would never fly for the reasons I've stated.

The NFL has twice as many teams as there are games on the schedule, plus a bye week for everybody at some point, so their teams probably can enjoy a schedule resembling what you propose, but again, I've never studied their schedule structure closely enough to confirm that.

[SJ46]

I don't think the schedule has an effect on whether or not someone will buy seasons tickets. Most know there will be some games they can't get to anyway for various reasons. I bought seasons tickets for the first time this year and the schedule wasnt' even something I thought about.

[notahomer]

If we are lucky end of February, anything sooner would be a shocker.

I read a short piece in todays Province and it said the sked should be released around Feb 25/26 (IIRC) during some CFL meetings.

[sixbeamers]

Schedule should be out by mid-February.