CFL commissioner says he’s open to changing replay mid-season

In the wake of Friday night’s replay controversy – the latest in an ongoing series – CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie said he would consider making mid-season changes to the replay system.

“I’d be amenable to it but that’s step five and we should start at step one,” said Ambrosie, who was in Calgary on Saturday to take in the Stampeders game against the Ticats. “If we need to make a change, talk to the teams about that and let the teams be a driver of whether we should do it sooner rather than later.”

Ambrosie, who took over as commissioner on July 5 – said he plans to meet with his football operations staff in Toronto on Monday to begin discussions on what, if anything, needs to be done.

“It’s been three-and-a-half weeks so I’ve been drinking from a firehose on many fronts but I think this is an issue that I want to get involved in over the next few weeks and really dig into it and see if we have a problem, what is it and what can we do to improve it,” he said.

A former offensive lineman who played nine CFL seasons, Ambrosie says he would prefer less interruptions to the game.

“I don’t like when we slow the game down. I like when the game is cooking along,” he said. “I’d like the best we can to let the game flow and for the game’s to be fast and dynamic and exciting. I would temper that with you would never want a game decided by an egregious mistake that could have been corrected.”

Ambrosie said he’s aware of the social media reaction in the wake of Friday’s game and that some fans have said they are turning away from the CFL because of the state of officiating.

“I don’t want to lose a single fan for any reason,” Ambrosie said. “And I certainly don’t want to lose them over [replay].”