A forensic study of its penalty history is like performing an autopsy, even if the Canadian Football League team is not yet dead. There's revealing DNA plastered all over the place.

The Montreal Alouettes and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, both very much alive, are different teams in many ways and their track record of penalties reflects that dissimilarity.

The Tiger-Cats were assessed the fourth-fewest penalties in the CFL this year, and were third lowest in punitive distance, a mere 63 yards — less than 12 feet per game — behind leading Calgary. The Alouettes, on the other hand, incurred the third-most bad-boy yards and were flagged for more infractions than any other team in the league.

Not only the gross numbers, but the types of penalties and their season-long arc, also tell a tale of two cities and of two teams that enter the Eastern semifinal evenly matched, despite their diversity.

The Ticats are only three weeks removed from a horrendous, flag-filled display at Molson Stadium when they were annihilated on the scoreboard and were assessed a whopping 113 penalty yards, the only time in the final eight weeks they even approached 100.

"That was really bad," says Kent Austin, who probably actually appreciated the late-season teaching tool. "It's not the most important stat, but it's in the top five. It's not our character to have a bunch of penalties. We're not the type of football team which can overcome an overabundance of penalties against a good football team.

"We don't want an undisciplined football team and penalties are an indication of that."

With the Ticats dressing the most players in league history, you would expect penalties of unfamiliarity — offside, illegal motion and no-yards — to be frequent. And they were … but only until mid-season, when the roster became a bit more predictable. The Cats took roughly twice as many offsides and procedures in the season's first half as in the second. And no-yards infractions in each of the final two games were their first in six weeks.

The Alouettes, on the other hand, play a high-octane, pressure defence, using mostly veteran players. They tend to bring more rushers than an offence can block, which leads to toxic pressure and sacks but also necessitates a lot of man-to-man coverage. And, traditionally, that tends to lead to interference calls because of the necessity to stay close in the early stages of a pass route.

So, yes, the Alouettes average one pass-interference infraction per game, which may be a calculated cost-versus-gain gamble. Some CFL folks complain the Als still get away with too much.

"There's a lot of clutching and grabbing out there, no matter who you play," says Henry Burris, who won't accuse the Als of anything extra. "Every team does it. It's hard for officials to see it all. The thing is, it's something that we expect to happen so you can't go saying when it happens, 'They did it, they got away with it!' If they are able to disrupt the receiver's first few two steps, the quarterback has to hold the ball longer to let the route mature."

The Cats get some pressure but not many sacks and have played off the ball a bit more with a virtually new secondary that test drove a dozen parts this year. They took interference penalties early as they learned the league and each other, but in the final seven games were flagged for it just once.

Safety Courtney Stephen says that, while the coaches continually harp about taking penalties, and Austin talks about repeating plays in practice when a recurring type of infraction is detected, the flag-reduction cops are actually in uniform.

"It might not be a coach who chews you up for a mistake, it might be one of your teammates who gets in your face," Stephen says. "It might mean something different to you coming from your peer rather than somebody who is supposed to be putting you in check, like a coach."

Recent results underscore that concept, too. The week after the penalty-fest in Montreal, the Cats took two offensive penalties in the first seven plays, then didn't take another until the final minute of the game. And, last week in Winnipeg, they provoked five flags in the first half, but only two in the second.

Both cases suggest there was an internal self-correction during the game, perhaps in the form of friendly confrontation.

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That same peer pressure seems to have been in play with unnecessary roughness penalties, which are, obviously, unnecessary. UR is the most selfish of fouls and often reflects a diminished sense of team responsibility. As they fielded altered lineup after altered lineup, the Cats took at least one UR in each of the first nine games of the season, 13 in all, but, with a more identifiable lineup, took only four in the entire second half of the season. This is a clean team.

So while, as Austin says, penalties aren't the only indicator they do paint a pretty accurate picture.