Watch CFL Football

The CFL, or Canadian Football League as it’s known more popularly, was founded in 1958 and is the second most popular professional sport being played in Canada, following only the National Hockey League. Nine different teams, all from different cities, compete in a 20-week long season, which begins in late June and ends in early November. The teams are split into an East Division, which consists of four teams, and a West Division with five. At the conclusion of the regular season six teams advance to a three-week long playoff run, which concludes with the Grey Cup championship game.

The Grey Cup itself pre-dates the actual formation of the current CFL. In 1909 the first cup was donated by Governor General Earl Grey, and the original recipients were the winners of the Senior Amateur Football Champion of Canada. Between the 1930s and the 1950s the game became more and more similar to football in the United States, and by 1958, the amateur game became a professional sport.

The four teams in the East Division are the Montreal Alouettes, the Toronto Argonauts, the Ottawa RedBlacks, and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The West Division consists of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the Calgary Stampeders, the Edmonton Eskimos, and the BC (British Columbia) Lions.