Longtime CFL reporter, author and columnist Graham Kelly reacts to the news the CFL has cancelled the 2020 season. (CHAT News photo).

By Alex McCuaig

Season sacked

League, owners could have done more to salvage season, says longtime CFL analyst

Aug 17, 2020 | 4:36 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat’s Graham Kelly has spent most of his life writing about the Canadian Football League, starting with the United Press International wire service nearly 50 years ago to writing seven books on the league and writing a regular column on Canadian football.

But Kelly’s local take on the CFL will be on hiatus this year, along with his 44-year streak of covering the Grey Cup in person.

Kelly said the league has to take a lot of the blame for not being able to salvage a season this year and used the commissioner’s first pitch to the federal government in the spring as an example.

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“One of the members of that committee was a Saskatoon member of Parliament,” said Kelly, referencing MP Kevin Waugh. “Who in his sportswriting days covered the Roughriders, loved the Roughriders and he said he was incredibly disappointed the league came in, they had no facts and figures and made no case.”

With the Flames and Leafs owning the Stamps and Argos, the Ti-Cats being owned by a multi-millionaire and the community-owned teams financially secure, Kelly says asking the federal government for support was going to be an uphill battle.

“There is no shortage of money in the Canadian Football League but there was a great reluctance by the people who had the deep pockets to step up and spend their own,” said Kelly.

But he says he is confident the CFL will survive, especially with one of the oldest and most cherished championships in North American professional sports.

“The great thing that always kept it going and kept it in the forefront of affection for Canadians has been the Grey Cup. Just as the Grey Cup has pulled the league through in the past with great games, it will do so again in the future,” said Kelly.