The Ticats' Dylan Wynn celebrating a sack and forced fumble.

The Canadian Football League playoffs began Sunday, and in a snowy game at Hamilton’s Tim Hortons Field, the hometown Tiger-Cats beat the Montreal Alouettes 23-12 in the Eastern Semi-Final to advance to the CFL’s Eastern Final next week in Toronto against the Argonauts. Montreal started this one off well, forcing a Hamilton punt on the Tiger-Cats’ first series and then putting together a seven-minute, 94-yard drive that ended with a field goal (after they lost three yards on second and two from the Tiger-Cats’ seven). But after that, turnovers doomed the Alouettes, with quarterback Trevor Harris fumbling three times and also throwing an interception. Here are some of those turnovers:

On the day, the Alouettes put up many more offensive yards (410 to 237), and they conducted plenty of drives. Harris completed 28 of 44 passes (63.6 percent) for 364 yards with a touchdown and an interception, while Hamilton’s Jeremiah Masoli completed 18 of 28 (64.3 percent) for 184 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions. But the Tiger-Cats’ defence came up big time after time, sacking Harris six times and forcing all those fumbles (a celebration of the final one, by Ticats’ DT Dylan Wynn, who forced two fumbles on the day, is seen at top). And that has Hamilton moving on to face the Argonauts next Sunday.

[CFL.ca]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.