Naylor’s Kickoff: Ward kicking his way into the record books TSN Football Insider Dave Naylor gets you ready for Week 17 of the CFL season with a look at the Redblacks’ red-hot rookie kicker, the latest on expansion to Atlantic Canada and the return of Chris Matthews.

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Eleven.

That’s the highest number of consecutive field goals Lewis Ward had made in his life prior to coming to the Canadian Football League.

This is remarkable given that, with 37 in a row and counting, he has already set a CFL rookie record for consecutive field goals made, established an all-time single-season record and is just two shy of the league's all-time record, which he could break tonight when his Ottawa Redblacks host the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

“It’s a lot of fun more than anything,” he said. “A lot of the guys in the locker room are super happy for me…I believed coming in that I just needed an opportunity to show myself and I expected to do good things when I got here.”

In a league where parity is strong and games can swing on a single mistake, having a kicker who’s made 37 kicks in a row can be a huge advantage.

“I guess you could say I’m in a bit of a zone,” Ward said. “When I get out there I have extreme confidence that I’m going to do everything right and I’m going to see the results I’m familiar with. My strength is my mental game and my consistency to be able to execute my kicks over and over again and that’s resulting in the number I’m at.”

Ward has also managed to have two games of seven field goals this season.

“Do you know how many guys kick for a very, very long time and never kick seven field goals in a game?” I asked him.

“I’d never thought about that,” he said.

Ward was a walk-on at the University of Ottawa and essentially a walk-on with the Redblacks, signing as an undrafted free agent and then winning the starting job out of training camp.

He missed a kick in Ottawa’s first game back in June but hasn’t been off-target since.

Ward spent his early years in the United Kingdom before moving to Kingston, Ont., where he continued to play soccer, eventually choosing university football partly because the University of Ottawa didn’t have a men’s varsity soccer program.

Up until this spring, the closest he’d got to the CFL was working as a security guard at TD Place Stadium, a job he held for four years, including a shift during last November’s Grey Cup game where he got to watch the kicker (Calgary’s Rene Parades) whose record he may smash.

It gave him an up-close look at how good he had to be to make it in the CFL.

“I’d be there early and watch the guys warm up and watch the kickers and how they warmed up,” said Ward. “There were times at the end of my time there that I thought I could definitely compete with those guys.”

Turns out he was right.

Halifax update expected by end of the month

Circle Oct. 30 on your calendar as the date there is likely to be an update on where things stand on the efforts to land a 10th team in Atlantic Canada.

According to a spokesperson for the City of Halifax, regional council is “tentatively” expecting an update on the project’s status and “may include a recommendation on the next steps in the process to bring a final recommendation to regional council on a site-specific financial arrangement.”

What that means is that the prospective owners, Maritime Football Ltd., could get the go-head to negotiate with the province of Nova Scotia on the remaining aspects of the deal before bringing the arrangement back to council for approval.

A positive vote at regional council at the end of this month could lead to a season-ticket drive and name-the-team contest, to coincide with the momentum of the CFL playoffs that wrap up on Nov. 25 with the Grey Cup in Edmonton.

Though Atlantic Canada has never had a CFL team of its own, it has had its own Grey Cup event, known as the Atlantic Schooners Down East Kitchen Party, which has been renamed the CFL Atlantic East Coast Kitchen Party this year and involves the prospective owners as co-hosts.

Chris Matthews returns

The Calgary Stampeders made a smart signing this week by adding former Winnipeg Blue Bomber Chris Matthews, the CFL’s Most Outstanding Rookie in 2012.

Matthews, however, is probably best remembered as the previously unknown NFL player who nearly became the MVP of Super Bowl Super Bowl XLIX between New England and Seattle.

His four-catch, 109-yard, one-touchdown performance was the story for most of the game, sending reporters to Google to search for information on a player who hadn't had a catch since the preseason and creating “Can you believe this?” buzz among the Canadian media contingent.

Matthews made only 16 receptions over the next three seasons – one with Seattle and two with the Baltimore Ravens.

Dispute between Lions, Ticats turns nasty

It’s hard to remember a CFL dispute between two teams that turned as nasty as the one between the BC Lions and Hamilton Tiger-Cats last week after the Lions held a post-practice dance contest on the Tiger-Cat logo painted at centre field in Tim Hortons Field.

The follow-up to that included the Tiger-Cats surrounding their logo before the game the following day, and some uncomfortable jawing both pre-game and over the course of the contest along the sidelines – some of which drew supplementary discipline for Ticats Brandon Banks and Jumal Rolle.

Is it possible the Lions thought nothing of the event, simply using the middle of the field for fun as they have many times before? Sure it is.

But it all it took was a social media presence for a few emotional Ticats to take offence while their teammates – offended or not – quickly fell into line when they sensed there was a chance to gain a competitive advantage.

The emotion on the field on game day felt so real, however, that it’s impossible to dismiss it having any sort impact on the outcome of the game, which the Tiger-Cats won in an unexpected romp.

No CFL-LFA deal yet

CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie has been in Mexico this week, meeting with officials of the Professional American Football League of Mexico about a potential partnership that could see the two leagues working together on player development and growing the game of football globally.



It was the latest in a series of talks Ambrosie has had with the Mexicans. Although there was a news conference Wednesday night in which the commissioner and his Mexican counterpart stood in front of a backdrop splashed with logos of the CFL and LFA, there is no deal in place.

A potential arrangement with the four-year-old Mexican league would be part of what Ambrosie has been touting as CFL 2.0, a plan to have the CFL reach beyond its borders to form alliances with emerging football nations, with the idea of recruiting the best foreign players and having Canadian players participate in other leagues for development.

Ambrosie has already presented his plan to CFL team presidents and the board of governors and expects to take things further when he travels to Europe this month.

“This partnership is the first of what we plan on being an alliance between our two great countries, our two great leagues and the potential for that alliance to expand all around the world,” Ambrosie said.



Based on the commissioner’s comments this week, it sure sounds like a deal isn’t far off. It’s quite possible the CFL could stage a preseason game in Mexico as soon as next spring.