With CBA put to bed, it’s finally time for CFL football

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And so the deal got done.

After one of the most eventful days for the Canadian Football League in a while, the league has a new collective bargaining agreement and the 2022 CFL season is on.

In what was the boardroom equivalent of a two-minute offence, the CFL and its players’ association on Thursday reached a tentative agreement on a new CBA for the second time in eight days. Only this time, instead of the agreement taking days to be put to a vote by the players, the matter was approved in a matter of hours.

The CFL Players’ Association ratified the seven-year tentative agreement with the league Thursday night, just two days after CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie presented players with his “final offer.”

All it took was some money and a little more guaranteed playtime for Canadian players to put the nastiest CFL labour fight in decades into the history books.

Its been long recognized that the CFLPA has a very difficult job on its hands, given that its players work in a league that loses money and the brevity of football careers can make seeing the bigger cause hard to see for many. Throw in the fact that the interests of Canadian and American players don’t always line up and you understand why players have often had to take what’s been offered, in many instances.

But despite a chaotic process that on Monday saw the membership vote down a tentative agreement that had been recommended by the players, the union managed to successfully go where none had gone in 38 years, and save the season to boot.

In the end, pushing the league to the brink gave the players a little more immediate money in the form of a ratification bonus. And a little more guaranteed playtime for its Canadians than