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Last October, Mark Cohon learned that his role as the CFL commissioner would be unlike that of anyone who had preceded him in league's highest office.
While past commissioners had dealt with all sorts of challenges, from rebellious crackpot owners to teams going broke in midseason, never in the long history of the CFL had anyone had to deal with the NFL at the doorstep, unannounced, wanting to bring its game across the great undefended border.
There are many things on Cohon's agenda as he begins his second year in office, from the continued upgrading of officiating to helping clubs with plans to rebuild stadiums to driving revenues that can improve the league's business model. But just one year into his five-year term, it's already clear his legacy will be determined by how he deals with an issue that raises complicated questions that have no simple answers.
Such as how does a commissioner defend against the threat of the NFL's moving into Toronto without bringing too much attention to it? How does he prepare for co-existence without inviting it? And how can he make the folks who run North America's most powerful sports league understand the cultural significance the CFL has for Canadians from east to west?
"I will tell you I've ebbed and flowed on how intense I think it's happening," Cohon, 42, said. "But what you have to do is be cognizant of the potential and that's why I'm not jumping into a deal [with the NFL] without thinking of all the permutations and variables. I think what we talk about are a lot of what-ifs and that's the biggest challenge."
"What I'm focusing on is how do I strengthen the business of our league without jeopardizing the authenticity and traditions of our league? And that's a balancing act."
Cohon chooses his words carefully when discussing the NFL, no doubt because there is not a clear consensus in the CFL about how to address it. Suffice to say, the commissioner is hearing from those who want him to dismiss the threat, those who would like to see him call out the politicians for protection and still others who'd like to see him negotiate the league's survival with everything on the table.
It's a lot to weigh for Toronto-raised Cohon, who admits to not being an avid CFL fan before taking the job last spring and who didn't truly grasp the manner in which the league matters to Canadians before attending his first Grey Cup last November.
"I didn't understand how passionate Canadians are about this," he said. "When I travelled around the country and attended games, I realized how important this is for our country. And it got reinforced to me at my first Grey Cup. Standing on the sidelines during the national anthem, I was almost crying."
Perhaps that's why Cohon is strategically positioning the CFL as delivering one thing that the NFL, for all its power and money, cannot: football as part of Canadiana.
That idea comes across prominently in the league's new promotional video, appropriately titled This Is Our League, which splices clips of CFL in years past with those of today.
The message is overtly pro-Canadian while subtly using the unspoken notion of the NFL's potential arrival as a springboard for stirring emotion.
"I think what [the NFL threat has] done is rallied support for us," Cohon said. "It's rallied the country in many ways around the CFL. And it's allowed people now to reflect that this is really important to our country and who we are as Canadians. "
