In the last two weeks of the regular season, the Calgary Stampeders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders will face off in the last games before the playoffs begin. On October 22nd they’ll play at the Mosaic Stadium in Regina and then, on October 29th, they’ll play in Calgary at the McMahon Stadium.
The end of the season is always exciting, even when the teams that will make it to the playoffs are already essentially decided. It isn’t exactly possible for the Roughriders to bounce back and make it to the playoffs but they do have the potential to disrupt the Stampeders and prevent them from building up any real momentum.
One of the biggest threats to any team’s success during the regular season and the playoffs is injuries. With a full-contact, aggressive sport like football, injuries are expected and always have to play a role in coaches’ plans and rosters.
Betway Insider has tracked injuries across a number of sports, and while the CFL isn’t included in their research, the stats for the NFL should be fairly applicable. Football players are consistently among the most injured professional athletes and spend some of the longest times on the injured lists. The most common injuries are to the knees, ankles, and hamstrings. The most serious injuries, on the other hand, are concussions.
For those who enjoy betting on CFL games, taking the injured lists into consideration is important. It’s difficult to place a smart bet if you don’t have a complete picture of who will be on the field, who might be a bit rusty after a long time on the injured list, and who is raring to get back into the game and prove themselves.
Anyone considering betting on the upcoming games between the Calgary Stampeders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders should keep injuries and other factors in mind. This preview will give you some idea of how we expect these two matchups to go.
Calgary Stampeders
It’s safe to say that the Stampeders have had a mediocre season this year. They are currently sitting 3rd in the West Division. They’re only a game behind the no. 2 team, the BC Lions, and are four games ahead of the Roughriders. Those are pretty good stats, and if they were in the East Division, they’d actually be no. 2. Yet it still feels like potential has been wasted this season.
Their last game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats has been described in headlines as, like something out of the dystopian sci-fi show Black Mirror and, as a wild loss that left players “scratching their heads” and wondering what happened.
A team can take that sort of befuddling loss in one of two ways. It can throw them off their game for the remainder of the season, or it can push them to get their heads and hearts back into the game and be the push they need to improve.
The Stampeders have the talent on the field to make it all the way through the playoffs. In Dave Dickenson, they also have a head coach who knows how to lead a winning team. It seems likely then that the Roughriders are in for a tough time, as the Stampeders will want to work through whatever it was that handicapped them against the Tiger-Cats before the playoffs begin.
Saskatchewan Roughriders
The Roughriders’ record is the exact inverse of the Stampeders’¾six wins and ten losses. Half of those losses have happened in their last five games. That’s a painful way to end a season, especially one that started with a lot more promise than these current numbers suggest. They started the season 4-1 and many fans were hopeful that the year they hosted the Grey Cup, they’d also compete for it.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where things went wrong. A slump is a frustrating thing for a team. You sometimes don’t realize you’re in one until it feels like it’s too late to come back and that just makes it even harder to perform at the necessary level. That seems to be what’s happened with the Roughriders. Add in a stomach virus that sickened most of the team and the coaching staff in early September and you’ve got a recipe for a long, frustrating slump.
The Roughriders are in decent shape at the moment and despite the losses, morale does seem to be fairly high. The team may have already set their sights on next season. Whether or not they use these last two games to claw back some numbers is hard to judge but it certainly would be nice see.
