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The 2008 season brought us the closest West Division race in more than six decades. With only four weeks remaining in the 2009 campaign, it’s pretty much the exact same story a year later.
With a month to go, only four points separate division co-leaders Calgary and Saskatchewan (both clubs have 8-6 records) from last-place Edmonton (6-8). In between are sandwiched the BC Lions (7-7).
A season ago, the final spread from top to bottom was a mere six points, the tightest finish since 1947. During that season 62 years ago, the difference was only four points at the conclusion of the eight-game season of the Western Interprovincial Football Union, which had only three teams at that time.
Since the WIFU became the Canadian Football League West Division in 1961 (with the exception of 1995, when the league was split into North-South groupings during the U.S. expansion experiment) there have been eight seasons when the final West standings showed a single-digit spread from first to worst. Three of those ultra-tight finishes have occurred since 1986 when the CFL went to an 18-game schedule.
Although anything can happen in the late-season going, the Eskimos theoretically have an opportunity to close the gap on the clubs ahead of them as Edmonton faces Toronto, the cellar-dwellers in the East with a 3-11 record, two times in the four remaining games.
All four of the Stamps’ remaining games are against West rivals as they play Saskatchewan twice and Edmonton and BC once apiece. There are two other head-to-head battles involving division foes the rest of the way — Saskatchewan plays BC in Week 17 and Edmonton takes on the Lions in Week 19.
Here are the tie-breaker scenarios involving the West teams:
As if things aren’t complicated enough already, the four-team race in the West in one sense is also a six-team race as the progress of Eastern clubs Hamilton and Winnipeg (both 6-8) has to be monitored because of potential crossover playoff implications.