Football
It's a different game in the CFL

By José Miguel Romero
Seattle Times staff reporter

ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES B.C. quarterback Dave Dickenson is introduced before the Lions' season opener at B.C. Place Stadium. Dickenson was briefly a Seahawk in 2002.

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VANCOUVER. B.C. — The score is 1-0, but it's not a baseball game. It's the second quarter of the Canadian Football League regular-season opener for the B.C. Lions and Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

In the CFL, the kicking team receives a single point if, on a missed field goal, it keeps the defending team from returning the miss out of the end zone.

That's just one of the differences between the NFL and CFL. The level of play in Canada's pro football league doesn't come close to its south-of-the border counterpart, but that's OK with most Canadian fans.

The CFL is, if nothing else, entertaining.

The field is bigger, there are 12 players on the field for each team, just three downs are allowed to make a first down, there is less time between plays and fair catches are not allowed.

It makes for a faster, more wide-open, higher-scoring game than the NFL.

Brian Wawryshyn, a 35-year-old fan from suburban Vancouver, B.C., who calls the Lions and Seahawks his two favorite football teams, stands behind flag and country when describing the NFL fans' attitude toward the CFL.

"NFL or American 'wannabes' are Canadians who prefer the NFL," Wawryshyn said. "They don't give the CFL a chance, and they don't give it the respect it deserves. The players here don't make the big money."

Wawryshyn and his jersey-wearing, face-painting cohorts are Lions fans who have season tickets in Section 17 of the inflatable-roofed B.C. Place Stadium. They call themselves the Lionbackers, exchange thoughts on a Web site (www.lionbackers.com) and hold pregame tailgate parties in a parking lot adjacent to the downtown dome.

Wawryshyn's favorite CFL moment came when Vancouver native Lui Passaglia kicked the winning field goal for the Lions in the Grey Cup of 1994, the second year of the CFL's three-year experiment with U.S. expansion. B.C. defeated the Baltimore Stallions 26-23 to win the CFL championship.

"It was Canada over the U.S.," Wawryshyn said. "The U.S. teams didn't have to have Canadian players. They could use a roster of all American players."

On CFL teams, 19 of the 39 players must be from Canada. The other players are "imports" from the United States. Most Canadian players are used as linemen and specialists, while Americans dominate the skill positions.

With a nod to Canada's favorite sport, this rabid fan of the B.C. Lions sports a hockey mask beneath his football helmet.

Low attendance figures and playing second fiddle to hockey haven't killed the CFL, even though it has not always been easy. The Lions were happy to draw almost 21,000 fans for their opener — on a warm night in a city with many entertainment options.

In the 1990s, the CFL's American experiment failed miserably and the league was in such dire financial straits that it had to borrow $3 million from the NFL to continue operating.

"We went down there without a long-term business plan for success," said CFL commissioner Tom Wright, who was not with the CFL when it added Sacramento, its first U.S. team, in 1993. "We didn't have the chance to present our game as different (from the NFL) to the communities we went to. It was doomed to fail."

After the 1995 season, the American teams were gone. The CFL had tried, but failed, in Sacramento, Calif.; Las Vegas; Shreveport, La.; Baltimore; San Antonio; Birmingham, Ala.; and Memphis, Tenn. But the league kept its Canadian base intact and counted on its regional rivalries, such as Winnipeg vs. Saskatchewan, Calgary vs. Edmonton in the annual battles of Alberta, and Toronto vs. Hamilton.

By 1997, the loan from the NFL was repaid and a new relationship had developed between the two leagues. Easier transferring guidelines helped CFL quarterbacks Jeff Garcia and, most recently, Ricky Ray transfer to the NFL, and gave fringe NFL players chances to continue their careers up north.

Local and community ownership solidified the financial status of several teams. In the past two years, the league has signed multi-million-dollar contracts with TV networks and with Reebok, which supplies on-field, sideline and fan apparel and accessories.

"The strength of the ownership in the league has never been better," said Wright, who joined the CFL in 2002. "For the first time in a long time, we're in great shape."

Wright has even mentioned expansion, hoping to add another team in the East to balance the two divisions. There are five teams in the West: Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, B.C., Edmonton and Calgary. The East has four teams: Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Hamilton. Expansion candidates for the East are Quebec City and Halifax, Nova Scotia, but it would probably be at least three years before a new team is ready to play.

Wright points to community-owned teams in Winnipeg, Saskatchewan and Edmonton and savvy front-office leadership around the league as reasons for its resurgence. The Saskatchewan Roughriders are Canada's Green Bay Packers, a sentimental favorite around the country.

Other positives are the accessibility to the players (some hold second jobs in the offseason), the ability of fans to relate to players because most salaries are similar to those of everyday working people, the intimacy of the league's smaller venues and the product on the field.

Where else can a guy like Dave Dickenson, who never got much of a chance in the NFL, become one of the hottest topics in the nation's sports pages and highlight shows? And who would have thought that Kerry Joseph, a former Seahawks safety, could reinvent himself as an option quarterback?

	ROD MAR / THE SEATTLE TIMES The CFL field is wider than its NFL counterpart and features a deeper end zone — 20 yards rather than 10. Also, the goal post is in the field of play.

Dickenson, who spent three weeks as the Seahawks' No. 3 quarterback in September 2002, is a star with the Lions. Dickenson and Joseph, like so many others in the CFL, were U.S. college stars who became lost in the shuffle of NFL roster moves and headed north to find success.

"There's a good mix of CFL quarterbacks, and I enjoy that group because we're all somewhat limited size-wise and a lot of us feel we had to come to Canada in order to get playing time," Dickenson said. "I found a home, and I enjoy it here."

Prior to his brief stay with the Seahawks, Dickenson had been with the San Diego Chargers and had backed up Garcia with Calgary in the CFL.

Dickenson was all over the television news in the days leading up to the Lions' game against Hamilton, grilled by reporters about whether a sore left knee would keep him out of the game.

Joseph, who started 14 games at safety for the Seahawks between 1998 and 2001, is now a quarterback for the improved Ottawa Renegades. He ran for a touchdown and threw for another as his team won its season opener at Winnipeg last Thursday on Canadian national TV.

A fan of the game at any level, Dickenson finds time to trek to Seattle for one or two Seahawks games a year — when the Lions are in a bye week or when they play on a weekday.

Dickenson was at the Seahawks' game against the San Francisco 49ers last October when some fans attending the game spotted him.

"The thing that shocked me was how many people recognized me down there, and most of them were Canadians," he said. "It makes me a little bit envious. I want those guys coming here (to Lions games). I want us having rabid football fans, and maybe they are big CFL fans as well, but there are definitely football fans here, and a lot of times we've been losing them south of the border. We need to get them back to being full-time regulars here and being proud of the CFL."

However, pride wouldn't be enough to put the CFL on the same level as the NFL.

In fact, a good U.S. college team would be favored against a CFL club. Games are mistake- and penalty-filled despite both teams' best efforts. But in the CFL, it truly is never over until it's over.

The Lions trailed Hamilton 35-15 late in the third quarter of their opener but rallied to cut the lead to 38-36. Only a fumble in the last minute stopped the B.C. comeback.

The Lionbackers stayed to the end, though the buzz had left the building.

"We've been through the lean times," said David Holmes, another Lionbacker.

And lean times they were. Richard Harris, the Lions' defensive-line coach who played for the Seahawks their first two seasons in 1976-77, remembers when he came to B.C. in 2001.

Yes, it is possible to have a 1-0 score in the CFL.

"When I first came here ... a swelling crowd would be 15,000," Harris said of the Lions, who drew more than 40,000 per game in the mid-1980s. "So they're starting to come back, and hopefully this team, the excitement of a new regime, so to speak, will get the people back in the stands."

That new regime includes popular general manager Bob Ackles, who was a Lions waterboy in 1954 and worked his way up to general manager. In 1986, he left for the NFL and spent 15 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, Arizona Cardinals, Philadelphia Eagles and Miami Dolphins. In April 2002, he returned to the Lions.

"We have to be in the community," said Ackles, who has the Lions making more player and staff appearances around Vancouver. "We lost a generation of fans, and we're trying to get them back."

If wins don't attract fans, the CFL hopes the fast pace of the game will. Even if the fans have to deal with a 1-0 score for a little while every so often.

Jose Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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