As wacky as the week was - what with a couple of kickers in Calgary getting bloody while fighting at practice, to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers being gift wrapped a win despite their new quarterback off the street doing nothing after their first series - nothing topped the story going into the opening weekend of August in the Canadian Football League: Arland Bruce III.
Spent the bulk of the week at Argo headquarters and it was as if every day offered a different twist to the soap opera. On Monday, Sportsnet was told Bruce's locker was cleaned out and his time was done. Made sense.
That night, another national outlet reported the crafty receiver would be at practice the next morning. When he wasn't on the field at Erindale that morning, Bart Andrus told us, "He's not here because I don't want him here."
Oh.
To the locker room, then, after we were done with coach and, sure enough, Bruce's belongings were gone from his stall, Chad Lucas's (acquired in a trade fresh off the Edmonton negotiation list) replacing the Spiderman and Champion t-shirts.
By Wednesday, Bruce was officially gone, to Hamilton, in a deal that seemed basic when it was announced by both teams. Two draft picks and the rights to Corey Mace from Hamilton to Toronto for Bruce. Easy, right? But upon further review? Um, not even sure Jake Ireland could decipher it, even with all the high-definition replays.
In reality, the full transaction went down as such: Hamilton got Bruce; Mace and the Ticats third round pick went to the Argos. The language of the trade included a provision that if Toronto signed the defensive tackle (he was re-signed by the Buffalo Bills hours after the division rivals made the move), then Winnipeg - Winnipeg! - all of a sudden gets Hamilton's third round pick via Toronto (because Mace was involved in the trade that sent Zeke Moreno from the Tiger-Cats to the Blue Bombers last fall).
And there's more! If Bruce is on Hamilton's 2010 active roster, the Argonauts get the best third round pick the Ticats have in 2011.
Clear. As. Mud.
It was that kind of week in the CFL. The sort of puzzling deal we're not used to, even for this league's standard.
You know the kind of week where: with their backs against the wall, at home, and the B.C. Lions soaring into the third quarter with all the momentum, the Tiger-Cats sending a loud message that they're for real with a decisive win; Chris Getzlaf, a practice roster mainstay, sliced through a Calgary secondary suddenly with a lot of questions, to lift Saskatchewan to an improbable win; the Argos, with a timeout remaining, took a delay of game penalty that cost them a home victory; those same Argonauts committed seven turnovers and still had a chance to win on the last play of regulation; the Blue Bombers released Tyrone Williams - as they battle salary cap hell - to go with Dorian Smith, who can't play the run and was exposed as such, again, on Saturday, yet had their linebackers, namely veterans Barrin Simpson and Neil McKinlay, who avoided the axe by a narrow margin at the end of training camp, deliver by stripping the football late to let the non-existent Winnipeg offence off the hook in a win.
It was that kind of week where Doug Brown gathered his Blue Bombers defensive line for drinks and a fond farewell sendoff to Williams on Wednesday, the day he was released. It was the kind of week where Bart Andrus sat his leading, and most veteran receiver left remaining on the roster- after the Argos kicked the tires to see if any other team had interest in Reggie McNeal, just days after he made it clear his best receiver wasn't welcome back.
It was that kind of week.
So with five games in the books for each team, check in on the CFL power rankings heading into Week 6.
