CFL gets Castellanosed, with sideline feature on plant sculpture weddings interrupted by touchdown

A well-known issue in sports broadcasting is when serious moments (hi, Nick Castellanos) or in-game interviews or in-game sideline reports get interrupted by events on the field. The latest case of that came during Saturday night’s Canadian Football League clash between the Ottawa Redblacks and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

That game was broadcast on TSN in Canada, and syndicated on CBS Sports Network in the U.S. and the CFL+ free streaming service elsewhere. And, in the third quarter, with Hamilton taking over following an interception, booth announcers Marshall Ferguson and Duane Forde threw down to sideline reporter Kenzie Lalonde.

There, Lalonde delivered a feature report on Ticats-themed plant sculptures outside Hamilton’s city hall. As she explained, those are part of the lead-up to the 110th Grey Cup being held in the city this November. And they’ve even already been used as a backdrop for wedding vows, as seen in the image above.

But, unfortunately for Lalonde, play resumed while she was finishing her feature, and the first play from scrimmage was a short pass to running back Tyreik McAllister that wound up going for a 64-yard touchdown. So she had to pivot to some brief play-by-play before throwing back to Ferguson, who did very well to get in the last bit of a touchdown call and add “A wedding present for Tracy and Darrell!”

Tyreik McAllister looked like the Nick Castellanos of the CFL Saturday, interrupting a sideline feature with a 64-yard touchdown. pic.twitter.com/G9KULHLNk9

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 9, 2023

Really, everyone involved handled this about as well as could be expected. Lalonde did well to both wrap up fast and provide a little commentary on the play when she saw what was happening, Ferguson picked it up very smoothly from there, and he and Forde then had some fun with how that played out.

There’s an argument that there could maybe have been some better scheduling here to insert this sideline feature at a time where there was a longer window before any play. But that can be tricky given broadcasts’ commercial commitments and so on, and exactly when the ball is snapped is not a constant.

And in most cases, a first down that far away from the end zone likely would have produced a much less significant play, where the absence of a call wouldn’t have been a big deal. So there isn’t necessarily a lot of criticism here for TSN. But Hamilton’s home run on this particular play did wind up being a little awkward for the attempt to get this feature out, with McAllister perhaps turning into the CFL version of Castellanos. Even if this was indeed a nice wedding present for Tracy and Darrell. (And they got another one in the end here, with the Tiger-Cats picking up a 21-13 victory for their first win of the season.)

[Awful Announcing on Twitter]