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TSN's Jennifer Hedger apologizes for excluding CFL in Toronto championship talk

TSN anchor Jennifer Hedger ignored the Argos' Grey Cups in a Toronto "championship drought" comment on SportsCentre Friday. (activeforlife.com.)

If you're going to talk about a city-wide "championship drought," you have to be very careful how you define that. TSN's Jennifer Hedger wasn't so careful on SportsCentre Friday, saying "The city of Toronto is hungry for a championship, hasn't had one in a professional sports league since 1993 when the Toronto Blue Jays won." The CFL's Toronto Argonauts are very much a professional team in a professional league, and they've actually won four championships since then, lifting the Grey Cup in 1996, 1997, 2004 and 2012. Argos' defensive back and Toronto native Matt Black, who's been with the team since 2009 and was one of several locally-born players involved in that 2012 championship, was one of many who took exception to Hedger's comment. Here's what he tweeted Saturday:

One of the best responses came from a guy who was on the other side in that 100th Grey Cup, also notable for its halftime show of Justin Bieber, Gordon Lightfoot, Carly Rae Jepsen and Marianas Trench:

Hamilton Tiger-Cats' owner/caretaker Bob Young also tweeted his disapproval:

Many other CFL players and fans sent annoyed tweets at Hedger and TSN over the weekend, and she apologized on Twitter Tuesday to fans of both the CFL and the National Lacrosse League (the Toronto Rock won six championships between 1999 and 2011):

Even if you specify "Big 4" (typically NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, the four that draw the biggest TV audiences), which Hedger didn't, that's still a flawed comparison. Toronto doesn't have a NFL team and Cleveland doesn't currently have a NHL team (they did have a WHA team from 1972 to 1976, and a NHL team from 1976 to 1978), so the only real comparison is MLB and NBA. It's notable that there's another professional Toronto team that's won championships since 1993, too; Major League Soccer's Toronto FC has never lifted that league's title, and only made the playoffs for the first time (in their 2006 to present existence) last year, but has claimed the Voyageurs' Cup (the Canadian club competition) four times, winning it every year from 2009 through 2012.

Still, it seems to be CFL fans and players who were particularly annoyed here, and they had good reason. It's interesting that Hedger would say this on a network that has the CFL as arguably its most valuable (and certainly its most consistent now that they don't have national NHL rights) TV property. It's quite possible to discuss championship droughts across sports, and to do apples-to-apples comparisons of cities, but "professional" is not the right distinction to draw here, and this fits into a long history of Toronto media not giving the Argonauts much recognition for their accomplishments. However, this was just a brief on-air comment from Hedger; mistakes happen, and she's now apologized, so the pitchforks can be put away. It's understandable why CFL players and fans were annoyed at seeing their league painted as non-professional, though, especially from their TV partner. TSN's anchors might want to be more careful with their championship discussions in future.