Canadian Football League (CFL) is the leading professional football league in Canada. Nine teams make up the Canadian Football League, divided into two divisions. The East Division consists of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the Montreal Alouettes, the Ottawa Redblacks, and the Toronto Argonauts. The West Division consists of the British Columbia Lions, the Calgary Stampeders, the Edmonton Elks, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
CFL rules resemble American football rules, with a few exceptions. Just as in the United States, most distances in football are measured in yards. One yard equals 0.91 meters. However, the playing field in the CFL is 65 yards wide and 150 yards long, including 20-yard end zones at each end of the field. The American field is 53 1/3 yards wide and 120 yards long, including two 10-yard end zones. The CFL goal posts are on the goal line. In the United States, goal posts are at the rear of the end zone.
Team rosters in the CFL are smaller than rosters in U.S. football. CFL teams are allowed a limited number of non-Canadian players, called imports. A CFL team consists of 12 players. Positions resemble those in U.S. football. On offense, the 12th player either lines up in the backfield or is used as an end. On defense, the 12th player plays in the secondary or is a linebacker. The offense has only three downs to make a first down. Because of the bigger field, CFL football is considered more wide open than the NFL game, with more emphasis on speed.
Scoring in Canadian football differs from that in U.S. football in only one way. The Canadian field has a dead-line 20 yards behind each goal line. On a kickoff, the receiving team must advance the ball out of the area between the dead-line and the goal line. If it fails, the kicking team scores 1 point, called a single, or a rouge. The same rule applies to a punt.
CFL teams play 18-game regular season schedules over 20 weeks. Each team gets two bye weeks when they do not play. The season begins in June and ends in November. Six teams qualify for the playoffs. The top two teams from each division automatically qualify. Usually, the third-place team in each division also qualifies. However, if a fourth-place team in one division has a better record than a third-place team in the other division, the fourth-place team takes the playoff spot of the third-place team. The two teams that win the division playoffs compete for the league title. The winning team receives the Grey Cup. 
Canadian football grew out of the sport of rugby. Football in Canada can trace its origins back to as early as the 1860’s, when amateur rugby matches were held. The Canadian Rugby Football Union was founded in the early 1880’s, but collapsed several years later. In the early 1890’s, the Canadian Rugby Union (CRU) was formed and remained the dominant organization in Canadian football for several decades. In 1958, a group that was part of the CRU left to form the CFL.
In August 2020, the CFL canceled the 2020 season because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19, a contagious respiratory disease, first broke out in China in late 2019. It soon spread throughout the world. In 2021, the CFL played a shortened, 14-game schedule that began in August and ended with the Grey Cup final in December.
