Today the Toronto Argonauts play the Calgary Stampeders in Toronto for the Grey Cup, which is the league championship trophy of the CFL, or the Canadian Football League. I don't follow sports much, but here are some things I learned while listening to the car radio today: (I think I have the facts correct.)

The CFL is considerably different than the NFL. In the NFL, it's rare to find a player making less than $100,000 per year, but that's as common as a barking dog in the CFL. In fact, there are some players in the CFL that also hold down a full time job as well.

The CFL started in 1912, so this will be the 100'th Anniversary game of the Grey Cup. In some games, such as the one in 1950, players played during a heavy rain storm in Hamilton, Ontario, and it came to be known as "The Mud Bowl" because the playing field and everyone on it was covered in muck by the time the game ended.

In one Grey Cup game held in Saskatchewan on a Saturday, (don't know the year), they had to stop the game because the fog was so heavy that the officials on the field couldn't see the players and therefore couldn't call the plays. At that time, there was a law in Saskatchewan saying that stores (except pharmacies and restaurants) had to remain closed on Sundays, and that same law applied to sporting events, including horse and auto racing. The CFL had to get special dispensation from the Province of Saskatchewan to finish the remaining 9 minutes and 23 seconds of the game the following day (Sunday).

One Grey Cup game was played in -20 degree weather, and the playing field was slippery because of the frozen ground the players had to run on. The coach of one of the teams managed to find a staple gun somewhere in the stadium and gave it to his players to put staples in the bottoms of their shoes to act as cleats for better traction on the slippery ground. That team won by 40 to 6.