Trevor Harris (7), Zach Collaros (17) and Josh Portis (3) will compete to back up Ricky Ray (15).

The first CFL preseason games happen this week, with the Toronto Argonauts taking on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Wednesday, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Montreal Alouettes playing Thursday and Friday featuring both a Saskatchewan Roughriders-Edmonton Eskimos clash and a battle between the B.C. Lions and the Calgary Stampeders. Unfortunately for those hoping to watch, though, only the Hamilton-Montreal (Thursday, 7 p.m. Eastern, RDS) and Saskatchewan-Edmonton (Friday, 9 p.m. Eastern, TSN) games will be televised. Still, it's worth following the rest of the games via radio, Twitter or post-game writeups; they're not overly essential, but they should impact some training-camp battles. Here are five key storylines to watch during this first week of preseason action:

1. Will either Mike Reilly or Matt Nichols claim the Eskimos' starting QB job?

The ongoing quarterbacking battle in Edmonton has been one of the most surprising developments thus far, as Reilly looked like the clear choice coming into camp regardless of Eskimos' management's unwillingness to anoint him. Reilly's accomplished much more in the CFL than Nichols has thus far, and Edmonton's offseason move to grab him looked like a clear desire to upgrade their quarterback spot, so it seemed that the lack of comment at the start of camp might just be to push him a bit. It may have turned into an actual battle, though: so far, head coach Kavis Reed is refusing to even say who's getting the start Friday. Regardless of who starts Friday, both should play, though, and a lights-out performance from one or the other might do a lot for their cause to start going forward.

This Edmonton Sun headline Wednesday offended many with an apparent Holocaust reference.Godwin's Law, which states that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1," apparently extends to the CFL. As you can see from the picture at right, The Edmonton Sun elected to use "Camp Concentration" as the back-page headline for a story on the Eskimos' training camp in Wednesday's paper. (Thanks to Brent Wittmeier and Andrew Evans, amongst others, for pointing it out.) Perhaps it was done innocently, but that sure seems like a Holocaust reference to many readers, and it's understandably provoked plenty of Twitter outrage. Fortunately, it seems like the Sun has realized their mistake: the paper's Twitter account spent most of the day Wednesday apologizing to the numerous people that they offended with this headline. Here's a small sampling of the considerable volume of Twitter complaints they received:

"Good one, Edmonton Sun." —things no Jew would say upon opening today's paper twitter.com/Wittmeier/stat…

— Omar

Ryan Perrilloux's come a long way from his LSU days.

Of all the weird and wacky ways players wind up in the CFL, hearing about it from arguably the best quarterback in league history while learning to throw a knuckleball for a MLB Network reality show might be at the top. That's exactly what happened with Ryan Perrilloux, the former quarterback for LSU, Jacksonville State, the New York Giants and the UFL's Hartford Colonials, who told Stampeders.com's Bryce Forbes he was encouraged to try the CFL by the legendary Doug Flutie while they (along with three other former college quarterbacks) were competing on MLB Network's "The Next Knuckler." As Perrilloux told Forbes, the knuckleballing didn't work out so well, but the advice he got from Flutie was well worth it:

Unfortunately for both, they couldn’t quite lose enough of the spin on baseball for it to dance like a proper knuckleball. Thanks to television magic, Perrilloux admits it made him look a lot better than he really was.

“I threw a couple knuckleballs,” he said. “The show doesn’t do any justice to how many knuckleballs I did not throw,” he added quickly with a hearty laugh.

But during the filming, Perrilloux got to know Flutie, who advised the 26-year-old about the CFL.

“He told me he came here and that it’s a great league,” Perrilloux said. “He said he definitely had an awesome time here. He said he got better, grew as a player and as a person.”

In fact, Perrilloux is wearing No. 20 for the red and white, the same jersey Flutie made famous back in the early ’90s.

While his CFL origin story is unique, Perrilloux's talent suggests he may prove to be more than just a quirky footnote. After all, this is a guy who was once considered one of the top two quarterbacks nationally in the 2005 recruiting class (along with Mark Sanchez), a player who was named the USA Today Offensive Player of the Year, the U.S. Army National Prep Player of the Year and Louisiana’s Mr. Football in 2004. (Bizarrely enough, he played at East St. John High School in Reserve, Louisiana, where his coach was Larry Dauterive, who was Flutie's position coach with the B.C. Lions.)

Chris Walby: The greatest of all time? (The Canadian Press)Last week, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers chose to immortalize four players. The criteria, apparently, was based entirely on a player’s “favoured" status among fans. Unlike the accolade itself – the naming of gates at new Investors Group Field – the process for choosing those players seemed entirely trivial.

That some would continue to legitimize their selection by constantly blathering on about the differences between "All-time greats" and "fan favourites," simply compounds the insult toward those far more deserving. The naming of a stadium portion is grand praise, commensurate with choosing an "All-time great." For a "fan favourite," a stadium sandwich named after the "popular guy" will do.

But this is not an indictment of those players chosen, rather a kind word for the one who wasn't. Brothers in arms, offensive linemen will always have each other’s backs. Bombers fans, on the other hand, have chosen to turn theirs on an iconic warrior who for 16 years carried the hopes of a franchise upon his.

The Alpha of my career, came on September 15, 1995, when running back Eric Blount set a single-game touchdown record for the Edmonton Eskimos when he scored five times. My first game ever as a pro, I was a member of an O-line unit that helped establish an Eskimos milestone that still stands today. It should have been the highlight of my evening but surprisingly, it wasn't.

In the aftermath of the game, with the Commonwealth Stadium crowd still buzzing from the five-TD performance against the Blue Bombers, meeting the greatest offensive lineman to have played in the CFL, was the greater honour.

Lions' safety J.R. LaRose (27) is known for hard hits like this 2011 one on Romby Bryant.CFL players come in from all sorts of backgrounds, and that often makes for an interesting mix in training camps between Canadians, Americans, rookies trying to figure out this league and established veterans who know how Canadian football works. Players often form connections beyond just their status, though, as they often come from the same areas or have played with or against teammates in the NCAA or CIS ranks. Sometimes, the connections are even more interesting than that, and that's the case with B.C. Lions' offensive line prospect Levi Horn and safety J.R. LaRose. As Lowell Ullrich writes, the two have a partly-shared heritage, and one that could make the Lions an anomaly in pro sports if both make the roster:

The Ottawa CFL team wants media outlets to CAPITALIZE their name.

Fresh off their official name-unveiling ceremony Saturday, the Ottawa Rouge et Noir (or RedBlacks for those who prefer less-than-grammatical English) have got themselves into another controversy. The RedBlacks name's been unpopular enough, with many fervently criticizing it since it first popped up in January, and the official unveiling of the name Saturday created plenty of further Internet mockery (including this superb "Ottawa Rod Blacks" logo), but that had largely died down by Monday morning. The franchise apparently stuck their foot right back into the sarcastic fire of the web, though, reportedly sending out a note requesting that media spell their name with ALL CAPS. That produced the expected Internet reaction, from CFL media, CFL fans and even some other sports types who wanted to join on the MOCKERY:

Americans Maurice Price (17) and Nik Lewis (82) led Stamps' players in O Canada Sunday.

For many of the American players who come to the CFL, it can be quite an adjustment. There are plenty of differences north of the border, including the three-down game, the bigger fields and the 12-a-side action—and that's just on the gridiron. General life in Canada also carries its own set of changes from life stateside, and one of those is hearing a different national anthem at games and other public functions. Sizeable numbers of the Americans who come north for the CFL adapt well, though, and some of the Calgary Stampeders showed that off ahead of an intrasquad game Sunday, with many of the imports on the team playing critical roles in this enthusiastic version of O Canada:

Prominent figures there include receivers Maurice Price (17), Nik Lewis (82) and Tim Hawthorne (78), Americans all. Of course, they had a little help from the locals: Canadian players like Johnny Forzani (80), Justin Phillips (44) and Brett Jones (69) can be seen chipping in as well. Still, it's the imports leading the charge here, and they deliver a very impressive version, certainly much better than Alexis Normand's attempt at The Star-Spangled Banner during this year's Memorial Cup. It's too bad these players weren't around in 1994 during the CFL USA days in Las Vegas, when lounge singer Dennis K.C. Parks infamously delivered a much, much worse version of O Canada:

Ottawa CFL legends Russ Jackson (L) and Tony Gabriel were on-hand at Saturday's unveiling.The worst-kept secret in Canadian football doesn't need to be kept any more, as the Ottawa expansion franchise set to start play in 2014 officially announced that they'd chosen "RedBlacks" (and "Rouge et Noir" in French) as their name at an unveiling ceremony Saturday. RedBlacks had been the leading candidate for the new team's name since at least January, and it was reportedly firmly chosen in April, so there wasn't a lot of suspense here. The various logo leaks (including that of the final logo the team chose, which appeared online at the end of May) meant that part wasn't particularly suspenseful either. However, the Ottawa ownership group was still able to put on an impressive event, and they received strong support from the fans in attendance. They also showed they're cognizant of the importance of recognizing the history of Canadian football in Ottawa, and that's going to be crucial to this franchise's success over the long run.

The ceremony included cheerleaders, a marching band, minor football players and a large amount of Ottawa CFL alumni, all of whom were brought up on stage along with CFL commissioner Mark Cohon, Ottawa GM Marcel Desjardins and ownership group members. All of that was received well by a strong crowd in attendance, and that led Ottawa mayor Jim Watson to say "This is an amazing sight" during his speech. Watson went on to talk about the importance of this team to his city, mentioning how it's a crucial part of the overall resurgence of Canadian football in Ottawa at the minor, CIS and professional levels.

"We're seeing a renaissance in football," he said. "The Ravens are coming back to university football this fall. The Gee-Gees have a new field they start play on this fall. And the icing on the cake, CFL football comes back to Ottawa in 2014!"

Cohon was also clearly impressed with the crowd in attendance, saying "I will be un-commissioner like and say this is awesome!" He mentioned his ties to Ottawa, saying "When I was a little kid growing up, Tony Gabriel was my idol." Perhaps most importantly, though, Cohon recognized the value of the CFL's history in Ottawa, saying that the alumni present were one of the most critical parts of the ceremony. "This is our past," he said. "We're going to be standing on their shoulders." Cohon then endorsed the pride obvious in the ownership group and the crowd of fans in attendance, saying it's valuable to have "a little bit of a Canadian swagger." (Some of that Canadian swagger was evident from the crowd: when Cohon discussed the state of the CFL and the new stadiums going up, most were applauded, but Saskatchewan received boos, likely thanks to their role in preventing the return of the Rough Riders name.)

The ownership group's Jeff Hunt then took central stage with Desjardins to unveil the name and logo, doing so with a video (which can be seen here) that looked back at