The Edmonton Elks beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 37-35 in overtime at Commonwealth Stadium on 26 September. Kicker Vincent Blanchard went nine from nine on field goals. Nobody in the CFL had done that before.
His boot accounted for 27 of Edmonton's 37 points.
Nine from nine
Until now the league record was eight field goals in a game, shared by four kickers. Dave Ridgway did it twice, in 1984 and 1988, Mark McLoughlin and Paul Osbaldiston both got there in 1996, and Lirim Hajrullahu joined them in September 2024.
Blanchard's regulation kicks came from 40, 37, 22, 54, 25, 40 and 27 yards. At 54 yards, the fourth was the longest. Arguably the seventh mattered most. It levelled the game at 29-29 with a second left on the clock. Two more followed in overtime, from 37 and 35 yards.
Blanchard is 28, comes from Quebec City and is in his third CFL season. He played just one game in 2024. This season he has made 50 of 53 field goals, a 94.3 per cent success rate.
Overtime, two points at a time
Since 2026, CFL overtime has worked like this. Each team gets the ball on the opposition's 35-yard line, and a touchdown must be followed by a two-point attempt. If it is still level after a second round, the regular season goes to a two-point shootout. Each side gets one try from the three-yard line per round, and the rounds keep coming until one team converts and the other doesn't.
Both teams traded two field goals in overtime, and at 35-35 it went to the shootout. It was only the second game to need one under the 2026 rules. Winnipeg beat Ottawa 36-34 in the first, on 19 July.
Hamilton quarterback Harrison Frost couldn't find Kiondre Smith. Cody Fajardo replied with a three-yard pass to Joshua Cephus. That was the game.
A two-point convert is all or nothing. Either the offence gets the ball over from three yards out and takes two points, or it walks away with zero. The gamble feature on plenty of online pokies runs on the same idea. Guessing the colour of a card doubles your winnings, and a wrong guess wipes out the lot. Wild Tokyo Casino has pokies with a gamble feature too, on https://wildtokyo.bet/, while in Edmonton, one pair of attempts was all the shootout needed.
Who else stood out
Fajardo completed 32 of 47 passes for 298 yards and threw one interception. Edmonton's only touchdown in regulation came from him as well, on a one-yard run. Running back Justin Rankin had 74 yards on the ground and 42 more through the air, and receiver Austin Mack caught seven balls for 62 yards.
Tyrell Ford was the pick of the defence, intercepting two passes. One came on a Hamilton two-point attempt in the third quarter, with the score at 18-16, so it doesn't appear in the official stats. His other interception does, and it was his seventh of the season, the most in the league so far.
Hamilton's touchdowns came from Larry Rountree III on a 39-yard run and from Kurleigh Gittens Jr. and Tyler Ternowski on passes of 34 and 31 yards.
What it means for the ladder
Edmonton moved to 11-4 and sit top of the West on 22 points, ahead of BC and Saskatchewan, both 8-6 on 16. Mark Kilam's side have won seven of their eight home games.
At 4-11, Hamilton are out of playoff contention. That guarantees a crossover, with the fourth-placed team in the West taking the East's third spot and travelling to the side that finishes second in the East.
Next up for the Elks is a bye week, then Hamilton again on 9 October, this time on the road.
In Canada the game was on TSN, and in the US it streamed on CFL+.