Montreal beats Calgary in Grey Cup rematch
Football Betting Lines
07/02/2009 - Calgary, AB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chip Cox returned a fumble 81 yards for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, sealing Montreal's 40-27 win over Calgary in the season opener for both teams, a rematch of last year's Grey Cup matchup.
The Stampeders posted three wins over the Alouettes last season, including a 22-14 victory in the Grey Cup title game. This time, though, Montreal (1-0) used its defense to turn back Calgary (0-1) to cap the Canada Day contest on a rainy night.
Anthony Calvillo completed 24-of-32 passes for 255 yards with a touchdown and was picked off once for the Alouettes. Avon Cobourne had 107 yards rushing with a touchdown.
Damon Duval was 5-for-5 on field goal attempts for Montreal.
Titus Ryan returned a kickoff 104 yards for a touchdown for the Stampeders. Henry Burris, last year's Grey Cup MVP, connected on 17-of-33 passes for 247 yards with a TD and an interception in defeat.
Duval kicked a 13-yard field goal just over a minute into the last quarter, capping a 12-play, 83-yard drive, to give Montreal a 30-27 edge.
A 37-yard field goal from Duval with nearly 10 minutes remaining made it a six-point margin, and the Als thwarted a Calgary drive when Mark Estelle picked off a Burris pass in the end zone with 6:06 remaining.
Instead of moving the ball and killing the clock, disaster struck for the Alouettes as Tristan Black plowed through the line to block Duval's punt, giving the Stampeders the ball at the Montreal 23 with four minutes left. It was Calgary's second blocked punt of the night.
But Montreal came back with another huge defensive stop. Keron Williams knocked the ball out of Burris' hands just as it was coming forward on a pass attempt and Cox scooped up the loose ball, raced the other way for the sealing score with just over two minutes left. Replay was used to confirm the ruling on the field.
Calvillo threw 37 yards for a touchdown to Kerry Watkins, who made a one- handed grab, just over two minutes into the game, and it became 14-0 a short time later on a 10-yard TD run by Cobourne. Duval's 48-yard field goal made it 17-0 with less than five minutes remaining in the opening quarter.
Even after Duval connected from 36 yards away early in the second, the 20-0 lead wasn't safe for the Alouettes.
Ryan rumbled down the left sideline for his 104-yard return, and a Burris to Jermaine Copeland four-yard scoring strike had Calgary within 20-14.
Duval was true from 32 yards away and after his single later in the second, he added a 15-yard field goal for a 27-14 margin. Sandro DeAngelis drilled a 33- yard field goal try just before the half ended.
Burris scored on a four-yard run in the opening minutes of the third quarter and DeAngelis made a 41-yard field goal with under 4 1/2 minutes left in the same period to tie the game.
Game Notes
Montreal has had a great deal of success opening the season on the road since 1996, winning all six such contests...Ben Cahoon had six receptions for 65 yards for Montreal, while Nik Lewis made four catches for 87 yards for the Stampeders.
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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.
Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
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