Reports that B.C. will get to host the 2014 Grey Cup should give David Braley plenty to laugh about.

The CFL is apparently set to hand Vancouver its second Grey Cup in four years. When Bob Mackin broke the news last month that the B.C. government had set aside $2.7 million to host the Grey Cup in 2014, it seemed like a long shot. Vancouver last hosted in 2011, suggesting there would be plenty of cities ahead in the queue (including Winnipeg and their new stadium), and a 2014 Grey Cup in Vancouver means that B.C. Lions' owner David Braley (who also owns the Toronto Argonauts) will reap the rewards from hosting three Grey Cups in four years. However, Mackin reported Thursday that the Lions are hosting a major press conference at B.C. Place Friday morning, and when he asked club president Dennis Skulsky if it was about the 2014 Grey Cup, Skulsky said "I think that’s a safe assumption." That strongly suggests that the league has in fact opted to go with Vancouver yet again, and that should raise significant questions for CFL observers.

Simply put, hosting the Grey Cup is widely believed to be the most important way to make money in the CFL, and it tends to come with a pile of cash. A Toronto Star report last November suggested that Braley was set to make up to $10 million off hosting the 2012 game, and while that doesn't quite mean the federal government was funding Braley, it does mean that the league was directing a lot of revenues his way for the second year in a row. At the time, that wasn't really questionable: Vancouver was a logical site for the 2011 game (the city hadn't hosted since 2005 at that point), and Toronto was the obvious destination for the 2012 edition, the historic 100th Grey Cup. However, there seems to be very little reason to go back to Vancouver in 2014.

Eskimos' GM Ed Hervey's quick announcement of the Odell Willis signing may have cost the team $10,000.

The amount of tampering that's thought to go on in the CFL is substantial, but although the league bylaws prohibit the practice (defined as contacting or negotiating with a player who another club holds the rights to), it's rare to see any action taken over it. That happened Wednesday, though, with the CFL fining the Edmonton Eskimos for tampering with Odell Willis. The Willis signing looked suspicious right from the start, as it was announced only four minutes after he became a free agent, and the spectre of tampering always hung over it. It's unusual to see a team actually fined for this, though. This seems like a good move on the CFL's part, as bylaws aren't worth the paper they're printed on if you don't uphold them, but the question is if one $10,000 fine to one club in a particularly blatant case is enough to really serve as a deterrent to future tampering.

Events like this 2012 CFL tweetup have helped the league grow its social media profile.

Social media services have made a huge impact on the CFL over the last few years, with the league, its teams and many players all coming up with their own Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. Plenty of interesting CFL discussion happens in those forums now, and teams are clearly investing substantial resources in promoting themselves through Facebook and Twitter. How well are those efforts paying off, though, and which teams are doing particularly well? Deadspin ran an interesting piece from the Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective last month, comparing NFL teams' Facebook followers and then breaking the data down geographically using information provided by Facebook. The second part isn't easy to do (the Deadspin piece states their data was obtained by "pretending to be an advertiser"), but how many people follow each CFL team on Twitter or like them on Facebook is public record, and it leads to some interesting comparisons. Here's the data for each team (obtained between 8:30 and 10 p.m. Eastern Tuesday night):

Unlike in this 2008 game, Hamilton and Toronto won't face off this Labour Day.

After a day of leaks of some of its details, the full 2013 CFL schedule was finally released Tuesday, and it contains a historic change that will disappoint fans of Labour Day football. The traditional Labour Day Classic between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto Argonauts, which wasn't played in 2011, made a brief comeback in 2012, but has been omitted again this year. Despite the stature of the Argos-Ticats game, there have been times over the years where Hamilton and Toronto haven't met on Labour Day, though. What's really amazing is that this will mark the first time since 1949 that there's only been one professional Canadian football game on Labour Day, so the CFL is breaking a tradition that precedes its own official formation in 1958.

Renaud was the fifth-leading receiver in CIS during his final season in 2012 (The Canadian Press)

Five receivers in Canadian university football averaged more than 100 yards per game last season. But Acadia University's Taylor Renaud is the only one we know of who posted a video of himself getting a ball in the face during a footwork drill that went a little bit awry.

One can almost hear the jury at the Atlantic Film Festival debating their grand prize: "This documentary was compelling and rich, but Taylor Renaud's Football In the Head has a football in the head."

The second-team CIS all-Canadian selection, who is looking for a free-agent opportunity in the CFL, was performing a quick-feet drill in the Acadia gym. It looked like was supposed to go through the obstacles twice and catch the ball. Only his roommate, Edmonton Eskimos long snapper and Acadia alum Mike Benson, threw the ball on Renaud a wee bit early.

@olearychris @neatebuzzthenet haha poor communication on Renauds part..he said throw it when he turns around..failed to say on 2nd turn

— Mike Benson (@mike_benson44) March 5, 2013

Local fans turned out in droves for 2010's Touchdown Atlantic. Will they support the 2013 edition?

Big CFL news broke Monday, as Sportsnet's Arash Madani reported that the long-awaited 2013 schedule will be released Tuesday. The schedule has typically been released in early- to mid-February, but has been delayed substantially this year. That's reportedly thanks to several complicating factors, likely including the Hamilton Tiger-Cats' move to Guelph as well as issues with the differing amounts of rest teams had between games. It seems the league's found a way to work things out, though, and while the official release hasn't happened yet, we're already starting to see some details of the new schedule leak out. One of the most interesting? Drew Edwards of The Hamilton Spectator reports that the Touchdown Atlantic game is back on the calendar, with Hamilton hosting Montreal in Moncton on Sept. 21. The key question there is if this year's contest will serve as impetus to hold more CFL games in the Maritimes and perhaps eventually put a team there, or if this will be a one-off that doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

It doesn't look like RONA will be sponsoring CFL trains in the future.

The CFL's sponsorship picture is starting to change. According to Kirk Penton of The Winnipeg Sun, Scotiabank and RONA are both departing as national sponsors. Scotiabank will advertise with the league this year but then leave, while RONA is already out of the picture. CFL commissioner Mark Cohon told Penton the league isn't concerned, as plenty of companies have recently inquired about getting involved, and that seems about right; the league's in a pretty good place overall right now, especially in terms of TV ratings, and that's often what really matters for sponsorship. However, not all sponsorships are effective, and the Scotiabank and RONA ones in particular didn't seem to really work (Update: RONA thinks theirs did. See the *Update section at the end of this post), so it's not all that surprising they're leaving. Companies looking to replace them should carefully think about how the CFL can help their brand before jumping in, though. Here are three tips they should consider.

Former Montana kicker Brody McKnight is now on his third CFL team in less than a year.

Remember the Edmonton Eskimos' controversial decision to trade Ricky Ray to the Toronto Argonauts, the outrage and conspiracy theories it spawned, and the role it played in the team's eventual firing of general manager Eric Tillman almost a year later? Well, they've just made a move that looks even worse. The news came out Friday that Edmonton general manager Ed Hervey has traded kicker Brody McKnight and a sixth-round pick to Saskatchewan for two fifth-round picks (39th and 40th overall). On the surface, trading a backup kicker for a couple of late picks doesn't seem terrible...until you recall that they acquired that kicker midway through last season for another kicker, a first-round pick and a fourth-round pick. Thus, the Eskimos have now now given up McKnight, Derek Schiavone, a first-round pick, a fourth-round pick and a sixth-round pick to gain two fifth-round picks. Value, thy name is not Edmonton.