Event Date: February 16th, 1983
Event Description: CFL Expansion
Source: United Press International
Competition to draft players from the University of British Columbia will highlight this week's annual Canadian Football League meetings, but backroom talk may focus on events south of the border.
CFL commissioner Jake Gaudaur played down any troubles that might be brewing over the new United States Football League and pointed Monday to the Canadian college draft as the highlight of this week's annual league meetings.
“It'll be a mundane meeting compared to last year when we had all the problems with Montreal and (Nelson) Skalbania,” Gaudaur said. “But then again anything would be mundane compared to that.”
Although Gaudaur denied the USFL would be a topic of discussion during the meeting, it couldn't help but be on the minds of some of the team owners. “I don't see any need to discuss the USFL,” Gaudaur said. “Why worry about something you have no control over. We need to worry about improving our own product.”
But the new league, which opens its season March 6, has so far lured two head coaches, Edmonton's Hugh Campbell and Winnipeg's Ray Jauch, one general manager and 11 assistant coaches from the CFL into its fold.
Gaudaur said the league was able to weather the challenge created by the World Football League without “any long range impact on the league and it won't have much affect this year.”
But some CFL coaches have expressed apprehensions about the new competition. “I think the one thing that's so different between the USFL and the WFL is the USFL is paying their coaches exceptionally well, up to NFL standards,” Calgary coach and general manager Jack Gotta said.
The meetings would also receive a report from the Atlantic Schooners expansion team, set to begin play next season in Halifax or Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, depending on availability of a stadium.
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