Churchill Week 1

Caught some Churchill Cup action today. I was surprised by how well the Americans did against Argentina. Not sure I like Canada's chances against them next weekend. I'm expecting a few changes in the Canadian line-up before then as well. I noticed in particular that they seemed to have a lot of trouble finding touch on penalties. It would have been nice to have a bit higher turnout as well, given the nice weather. At the same time, 7,000 is still decent particularly when all the media had talked about for the past week was how these two games would be blowouts (and when the Journal preview from that morning had the wrong times for the matches). Hopefully it's a bit bigger crowd for the finals. It was rather interesting that pretty much all 7,000 people sat on the same side of the stadium (so it at least probably looked like a decent turnout on tv). I also enjoyed the Mascot 7's they had between the games.

What does have me rather choked is that the games weren't on Sportsnet this year. While I appreciate the 7's coverage they've had, the complete lack of 15 a side coverage this year is rather distressing. Particularly given that the Lion's Tour is going on, and I'm having to content myself with Planet Rugby and TVNZ's live text updates.

On the Eskimos front, I'm a little disappointed though not terribly surprised at Khari Jones' release. He didn't really impress in the game that I saw him in, and it sounded like the game in Winnipeg wasn't much better. While it was sort of an unfortunate situation that he had to play Winnipeg in both pre-season games, I can see how the Eskimos went a different direction. Quarterback is actually one of the positions that I'm not at all worried about (runningback on the other hand...). As well, I'm hoping that letting Danny Wimprine get away without getting a look at how he performed in preseason action doesn't come back to bite us, but I suppose time will tell.