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The first regular-season game held in Atlantic Canada featured the Eskimos and Argonauts in Moncton in 2010. That was followed a year later by the Tiger-Cats and Stampeders, also in Moncton.

There have also been a handful of pre-season games played in Saint John and Halifax since the 1980s.

The 2019 CFL schedule was released at noon ET on Thursday — in plenty of time to put tickets under the Christmas tree, as the league noted — and this one features a few other wrinkles.

The number of short weeks — those with fewer than seven days between games — drops to 40 in 2019, down from 51 three seasons ago. That’s part of the league’s continuing efforts in the name of player safety.

As with 2018, each team’s 18 regular season games are scheduled across a 21-week campaign, leaving them with three bye weeks apiece.

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In an effort to bolster TV ratings, the league will show 20 Saturday games at the prime time of 7 p.m. ET. There will be five triple-header Saturdays and a total of 40 games on that night throughout the season. The schedule features 12 games on Thursdays in the first half of the season, and 24 Friday night games overall.

There will also be just three games on Mondays and two on Sundays before the playoffs start.

Those playoff races will be aided and abetted by the fact that the 12 games scheduled for the final three weeks of the season will all be intra-divisional.

The 107th Grey Cup goes Nov. 24 in Calgary.

dbarnes@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sportsdanbarnes