Tom Wright formally confirmed last week what Metro readers have known since last year — that he’s out as CFL commissioner after this season — but his lame-duck status doesn’t mean he’s toothless yet. And so he needs to toughen up.
Immediately.
He needs to deal with the Edmonton Eskimos.
See, the Esks are shamelessly sneaky when it comes to handling their field, and there was no exception when the B.C. Lions visited them last weekend. Last Thursday, there was a storm in Edmonton and yet, on Friday, the Esks watered their field. And the forecast for the game Saturday night called for rain.
The Esks also have a mysterious policy in which they disallow visiting teams from practicing on their field. So there were the Lions, a dome team, not being able to get accustomed to the soaked, natural grass in Edmonton.
And then, sure enough, there wasn’t only rain Saturday, but a storm so severe that the game was delayed in midstream. The Esks were losing at the time, but, when play resumed, the Lions couldn’t cope with the drenched field (B.C. receiver Geroy Simon went for a spill, for instance, when he was wide open and on the verge of catching a probable touchdown pass) and Edmonton came back to prevail 27-20.
“That was something else,” Esks coach Danny Maciocia said. “(The rain) was a blessing for us. It came at the right time.”
But the rain didn’t wash away the smell. Something stinks about what happened in Edmonton on the weekend. It was a tainted win, and Wright ought to address it.
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