

Why were the players standing around in position to run another play? Three … two … one … Why wasn’t anyone dumping Gatorade on the victorious coach? Was it because it was cold, and it would have been a bad idea to douse a coach? Were Canadians just that polite? What was going on? The winning team was in kneel-down formation, and the final seconds were ticking off the clock. The most confused I’ve been watching Canadian football came at the end of the first Grey Cup I watched. The clock hits zero, and then there’s one more play, and then the game officially ends.
Thanksgiving day football games 2018 series#
Teams are allotted just three downs per series instead of four.

Twelve players line up on each side of the ball instead of 11.
Thanksgiving day football games 2018 professional#
But every year, I make a point of prying my eyes away from the teams I watch every other fall week to catch the biggest game in the world’s second-biggest professional football league.Ĭanadian football, like everything else about Canada, is different in the details from the U.S. This is a no-go for most American football fans, though, as it falls right in the middle of the Week 12 NFL slate. Americans can watch the Grey Cup too, as the matchup between the Ottawa Redblacks and the Calgary Stampeders will be broadcast Sunday at 6 p.m. On Thursday, Americans will watch the wildly popular Thanksgiving Day games on Sunday, Canadians will watch the Grey Cup, the Super Bowl of the Canadian Football League. This week, we will both celebrate another of our biggest similarities: football. We’re two of the few countries on earth to celebrate Thanksgiving, but while Americans will gather around the turkey Thursday, Canadians had their Thanksgiving a month and a half ago, on the day that’s federally recognized in the U.S. We have similar accents-resembling each other more closely than any other English-speaking language accents-but there’s something aboot Canadian accents that’s a little bit off. We both use dollars, but their loonie is worth a tad less than our buck. I’ve always joked that Canada is just a version of the United States that decided to be 10 percent different.
