The Hamilton Spectator has a couple of excellent recent pieces on the CFL's new off-season voluntary workouts (OVWs), including Drew Edwards' story on how the Tiger-Cats are trying to take full advantage of the program and Steve Milton's column on how East Division teams are following suit, but West Division teams are not (posted at Edwards' blog). Basically, the 2010 collective bargaining agreement included a new provision that allows CFL teams to hold one formal voluntary three-day workout between Feb. 1 and April 30; these workouts can feature any players under contract (the "voluntary" aspect means you can't necessarily get some established veterans, but you could get those who feel their roster spot might be threatened if they don't show). These workouts only involve helmets, and intentional contact is banned.

To get an idea of what goes on in these workouts, you can check out Ed Tait's pieces on the showing put in by Cory Watson and Greg Carr (pictured above) at the recent

Former CFL quarterback and current CFL on TSN analyst Matt Dunigan talked to The Toronto Star's Chris Zelkovich Wednesday about how he convinced his son Dolan to quit football at the age of 14 after his third concussion in 2007, and that story's one that carries significant implications for football as a whole. One of the most interesting elements of Doug Brown's column on the dangers of concussions (and football in general) was his closing comment on how he might not choose a football career again if he had the chance to start over, and he might not encourage his kids to take up the game. As no one's developed a time-traveling DeLorean yet and Brown doesn't currently have kids, his comments were somewhat abstract, but the Dunigan case proves Brown is far from the only veteran footballer thinking that way. Here's part of what the senior Dunigan told Zelkovich about how that conversation with Dolan went:

"It was the most difficult thing I've had to do, to tell my son what he couldn't

Observers of the Canadian sports media scene will have noticed by now that there's a new big-name outlet out there; specifically, TSN Radio, which launched on Toronto's 1050 AM frequency Wednesday (and can be listened to anywhere on the web here). They already have plenty of prominent personalities in the lineup, including Mike Richards, Bryan Hayes, James Cybulski, Gareth Wheeler, Dave Naylor, Bruce Arthur and Dave Feschuk, and it's going to be interesting to see what kind of content they turn out. What takes this from a sports media story to a CFL story is the amount of three-down football content they've had so far, though, and what they're planning to do in the future.

The CFL was a big part of the station's launch Wednesday, and that's particularly notable considering that we're not only in the middle of the offseason, but also that it was the first day of the NHL playoffs and that David Beckham was in town with the L.A. Galaxy to play Toronto FC (and make controversial comments

The CFL announced today that the rule changes proposed by the league's rules committee have been officially approved by the league's board of governors. There are some interesting new twists in there, including a ten-yard penalty for punts out of bounds between the 20-yard lines, clarification on the illegal participation rule and eliminating cut blocks on downfield passes. However, the most significant change of all may be alterations to the instant replay rules, and these particular adjustments suggest that the CFL is firmly on the side of increasing the role of replays. That's an extremely positive decision in my books.

There are two specific changes to the replay rules, and both seem valuable from this perspective. The first involves quarterbacks dropping back to pass and getting hit. Previously, if the ball came out and was ruled an incomplete pass on the field and then either challenged or submitted to booth review (depending on the point of the game; plays before the

One issue that's frequently discussed on a variety of message boards is the possibility of a CFL video game. There have been some statistics-based games looking at the front office and coaching sides of the CFL, and even some unofficial CFL mods and uniform conversions in Madden, but there hasn't been an officially-licensed CFL game since CFL Football '99 (screenshots from it are pictured above; it also was more of a simulation focusing on the management side than a true Madden-style experience). To try and figure out why we haven't seen more official CFL games and if we're ever likely to see one, I spoke with Owen Good, who's a weekend reporter and sports video game columnist for renowned video game site Kotaku. Here's what he had to say (I've added links where appropriate):

Andrew Bucholtz: Why haven't we really seen a notable CFL video game developed before (at least, since CFL Football '99)? Is it market size, production costs, lack of interest from developers, or a combination of

The Lingerie Football League announced Wednesday that it will put an expansion franchise into Toronto in 2011 and plans to follow that by creating an entirely Canadian six-team LFL with teams across the country in 2012. For those unfamiliar with the LFL, it's a league that plays seven-on-seven tackle football, but the football product is often quite secondary to the athletes, who are selected at least partly based on their perceived physical beauty and are attired in bras and panties (with shoulder and knee pads and helmets as the lone concessions to safety). Of course, this is already stirring up some controversy; as Allison Cross reports in the above Toronto Star article, several women are already upset about this:

Judy Pfeifer and her 14-year-old daughter were horrified to hear of the sport's imminent arrival.

"What's next, thong soccer?" said Pfeifer, who lives in Toronto. "I don't think this does much for gender equality."

Her daughter, Zoë Grace, who plays soccer and volleyball,

The CFL has long been a place where experienced players can flourish, and that has even included guys who have starred long after they turned 40 (Bob Cameron and Lui Passaglia are just a few of the notable examples). Perhaps that's what motivated a 59-year-old Florida man to try out for the Saskatchewan Roughriders Sunday at a Daytona Beach free-agent camp. From The Daytona Beach News-Journal's Sean Kernan, here are some of the details of Charles Chulada's attempt to crack the CFL:

While the other 20-something and a few 30-something players had their Under Armour, Nike and Adidas gear on, Chulada worked out in blue jeans, a 16-year-old T-shirt and some cleats he had from playing for a semipro team several years ago.

"I knew I could do it," Chulada said after running a couple of 40-yard dashes. "I want to put on a helmet and run through a brick wall to show them I can do it."

Fortunately, there were no helmets around to tempt Chulada, who from 1969 through 1973 played college football

Drew Edwards had an excellent piece in The Hamilton Spectator recently about attending a free-agent camp the Hamilton Tiger-Cats held for prospective CFL players in Buffalo last month. As Edwards pointed out over at The Scratching Post, the piece was substantially delayed thanks to his vacation and work on running coverage. The delay may actually have made it better, though, as it gave the team time to make decisions on some of the prospects they looked at, which allowed Edwards to use some of their names (the Tiger-Cats had earlier stipulated that he'd only be able to write about the camp on the condition he left names out). What's most interesting about the piece isn't the specific players involved, though, but rather the detail it provides on what's usually a very off-the-radar process. I found this description of how the Tiger-Cats winnowed the prospects down particularly notable:

"If we don't think you're good enough we may ask you to leave - it's nothing personal," [general