Professional football in Canada
Only one professional football league has a permanent presence in Canada: the Canadian Football League (CFL), an organization founded in 1958 to accommodate the ongoing trend of professionalism in the Canadian football ranks since the 1940s. The CFL, like most amateur Canadian football leagues, plays on a larger field using a rulebook with several significant rule differences compared to the game as it is played in the United States. The league is composed of two divisions and nine teams in most of the largest Canadian markets, with at least one team in each province between British Columbia (BC Lions) and Quebec (Montreal Alouettes) inclusive. The only presence in Atlantic Canada is a semi-regular series of games in Moncton (Touchdown Atlantic) and a smattering of earlier preseason contests. The CFL operates a two-week preseason beginning in June, an 18-game season from July to October, and a six-team playoff tournament, culminating in the Grey Cup on the fourth weekend of November.
Canadian Football Act
The Canadian Football Act (1974), also known in its long title as An Act respecting Canadian Professional Football, was a proposed Act by the Parliament of Canada in April 1974 designed to give a government-protected monopoly over professional football in Canada to the Canadian Football League (CFL). Although it was never signed into law, the move by the government eventually compelled the World Football League's Toronto Northmen to move to the United States as the Memphis Southmen. The spectre of the Act was again raised when John F. Bassett, the owner of the Northmen/Southmen franchise, proposed a United States Football League franchise for Hamilton, Ontario, in 1983.