There was some sad CFL news Friday, as the league released a statement on the passing of former CFL commissioner John Donald Crump. According to this obituary from The Toronto Star, Crump passed away Thursday at Newmarket, Ontario's Southlake Regional Health Centre. He was 78.

Crump's tenure as CFL commissioner was fascinating, even if it wasn't very long. As the Toronto Sun's Lance Hornby writes, Crump was an unexpected choice as commissioner in 1990, but he was certainly qualified to deal with the squabbling owners who were deeply divided at the time:

At Donald Crump's surprise unveiling as Canadian Football League commissioner in 1990, he was asked how he could possibly control eight radically different team owners.

"I have a great deal of experience in finding out how to tie down a loose cannon," he reminded of his previous two decades' work at Maple Leaf Gardens with the unpredictable Harold Ballard.

As treasurer of MLG - which was like holding the keys to the Canadian Mint -

Friend of the blog Brad Gagnon posted a rather interesting interview over at Goal-Line Stand Thursday, speaking to Toronto councillor Doug Ford about plans to try and attract an NFL team to the city. Ford made some rather bold statements, including saying that two teams (Jacksonville and New Orleans) "are kind of in play here," and that the NFL "can't keep ignoring a market this size." Funnily enough, though, Ford's comments themselves might be further disincentive for the NFL to stay away; his comments about New Orleans in particular hit a nerve, forcing the team to issue a quick denial, and he had to make a public apology in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. (That hasn't stopped him from getting plenty of hate mail from Saints' fans, though).

This obviously isn't the first time this has come up, as the NFL in Toronto has been a matter of debate for years and took on a new life in 2007 when the league announced the Buffalo Bills would play a series of exhibition and regular-season games

Some players-turned-analysts are known for carrying playing biases into their new jobs. That isn't necessarily bad, as long as they don't take them too seriously, but it's still refreshing to see an analyst come out and say what he really thinks about the recent actions of the team he used to play for. Legendary former Winnipeg Blue Bombers receiver and current CFL on TSN panelist Milt Stegall (seen at right in 2008 when he broke Allen Pitts' CFL career receiving yardage record) did just that this week, sounding off to the Winnipeg Sun's Paul Friesen about the team's off-season moves and current head coach Paul LaPolice. Here are some of the highlights:

— On the Steven Jyles trade: Buck Pierce is a great quarterback," Stegall began. "But if he goes down... they might be calling back Kenny Ploen. Because I don't even know what's behind him. They have, what's his name, Brink?

"If Buck is healthy, they have a chance. If he's not, I don't believe they have a chance."

— On receivers Brock

When the new format for this year's Nutrilite Canadian Championship came out, many pegged it as something that would lead to an easy run for the two Major League Soccer teams involved. Both Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps were matched against Division II sides from the North American Soccer League in the semi-finals, and it seemed quite likely that they would both advance to a showdown in the final. After the smoke cleared from the second legs of the semi-finals Wednesday, a Toronto-Vancouver final was confirmed, but the path to it was far more difficult than most anticipated. It's going to be a notable final and one that could be a significant moment for Canadian soccer, but it almost didn't come to fruition.

The difficulties arose on the Vancouver side of the draw, and they came from a familiar source. The Whitecaps and Montreal Impact have battled back and forth across a variety of leagues since the latter club's founding in 1992, and they had had plenty of memorable

It may be smack in the middle of the NHL playoffs, but Wednesday could perhaps more accurately be dubbed "Soccer Night In Canada." All four Canadian teams in the top two divisions of North American soccer are in action, and they're playing each other. Toronto FC hosts FC Edmonton at 8 p.m. Eastern, while the Montreal Impact head to Vancouver to face the Whitecaps (kickoff at 11 p.m. Eastern/8 p.m. Pacific). These matches are the second leg of the semi-finals of the Nutrilite Canadian Championship (or Voyageurs Cup, depending on your preferred nomenclature), a quirky but important tournament that continually finds ways to triumph despite obstacles, many of them self-imposed.

The Voyageurs Cup (which Toronto FC players are pictured raising above in 2010) itself is a fan-created trophy founded in 2002. It was originally awarded to the Canadian team with the best regular-season record against other Canadian teams, which made sense in the early years when Canada had up to five teams in the

With the 2011 CFL draft coming up this Sunday (12:30 p.m. Eastern, TSN), there's plenty of discussion around as to who's going to be selected where. Will Rice tackle Scott Mitchell's top ranking in the latest CFL list lead to Winnipeg taking him first overall, or will they go for a CIS player like Calgary slotback Anthony Parker (pictured above stiff-arming Queen's linebacker Chris Smith during the 2009 Vanier Cup) or St. FX linebacker Henoc Muamba? Will there be first-round trades? How will teams balance the potential of NCAA underclassmen with the chances of losing them to the NFL the way the B.C. Lions lost Danny Watkins this year? Where will Western's Vaughn Martin, currently with the NFL's San Diego Chargers, be drafted? Will anyone take Western linebacker and documentary superstar John Surla? One of the best resources for making sense of the draft is Ridley Scouting's 2011 Draft Guide. For some information on what's going on with this year's version and what this year's draft

Tuesday's Toronto press conference on concussions was notable not just for the improvements announced, which were significant in their own right, but also for the wide range of groups that came together to discuss the issues around head injuries. The conference featured everyone from CFL commissioner Mark Cohon to Football Canada director of sport Rick Sowieta to CIS chief executive Marg McGregor and Toronto Argonauts' CFLPA representative Bryan Crawford, and it had representatives from essentially every level of organized football in Canada. Despite that wide-ranging composition, the panel demonstrated a remarkable consensus on many key issues; concussion awareness has to be increased at all levels, football rules and tackling instructions have to be refined to discourage dangerous play, head injury treatment has to be standardized and done in accordance with international protocols and research into concussions has to continue.

Some direct measures were announced to achieve these

On many professional sports teams, the reaction to a player getting in legal trouble is inversely proportional to the player's importance; bottom-of-the-roster scrubs tend to be dumped instantly, while star players are often kept and defended until the team has no choice but to get rid of them. That doesn't appear to be the case with the B.C. Lions, though. B.C. announced the release of star running back/kick returner Yonus Davis Tuesday, a couple of weeks after it was reported that he was detained by DEA agents with 67 pounds of ecstasy (approximately 40,000 tablets) and charged with possession with intent to distribute, which could lead to a sentence of up to 20 years in jail. Davis was a revelation for the Lions last year, leading the CFL's West Division with 1,642 all-purpose yards despite not playing much early in the season, and he was named as the divisional finalist for the league's outstanding special-teams player award (which went to Toronto's Chad Owens). Now, they're going