CZECH POINTS: The brief and corny history of the Tweed Muskies | InQuinte.ca
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CZECH POINTS: The brief and corny history of the Tweed Muskies

By Brock Ormond Oct 1, 2026 | 4:33 PM
By Paul Svoboda
There will be no speeches. No pep rally. No parade.
But, hopefully, somewhere in Tweed, maybe even this weekend, a few locals will raise a frosty glass to the 30th anniversary of the CFL team that never was. The Tweed Muskies.
Thirty years ago, in 1996, an Atlanta-based lawyer named Russell Moon — who claimed to have family ties to Tweed — proposed the creation of a CFL expansion team to be called the Tweed Muskies. According to Moon, the team would play in a cornfield, fixed up to accommodate football and surrounded by temporary steel bleachers.
‘Cornfield Stadium,’ which was to be located somewhere just outside Tweed, would most assuredly attract busloads of avid football fans from a broad region of Central and Eastern Ontario — including Belleville — eager to support the new franchise, said Moon. Also, as part of his plan, players under contract to the Muskies would be obligated to perform community and public service work. Maybe even pick corn.
Moon, who actually showed up in Tweed to pitch his idea, appeared quite serious about the whole crazy notion. Then covering sports for The Intelligencer, I trucked on up to Tweed along with photographer Frank O’Connor to meet Moon in said cornfield.
There, as I recall, Frank snapped a wonderful pic of a smiling Moon playfully tossing a football in the air while behind him row upon row of sun-drenched corn stalks gently waved in the breeze. It should’ve won a Canadian Press award. Really.
To his credit, then CFL commissioner Larry Smith didn’t come right out and call Moon a loon. As far-fetched as it was, there was no denying it was a neat story. And it garnered some fanciful ink for the league immediately following its failed three-year American expansion experiment.
Heck, in retrospect, Moon’s proposal for putting a CFL team in Tweed appears no more outrageous than the CFL putting a team in Shreveport, Louisiana. Which it did. The Shreveport Pirates played two seasons in the league, 1994-95, winning a total of six games and losing 30.
So, here’s to the Tweed Muskies. The CFL team that never was. It was fun while it lasted.
NFL QUICK HITS
Three games into the 2026 NFL season is way too early to make any significantly bold predictions, but there are some interesting trends developing, nonetheless. Here’s a brief look:
Business as usual: Bills, 3-0; Chiefs, 3-0; Forty-Niners, 3-0.
Even when Buffalo plays lousily against a lousy team — Week 3 vs. the Chargers — the Bills still find a way to win. Did Patrick Mahomes really have knee surgery during the off-season? If San Fran stays healthy, look out.
Pleasant surprises: Vikings, 3-0; Raiders, 3-0.
I’m not one to crown coaches, but I read somewhere the other day that Kevin O’Connell might be the best there is in the NFL right now the way he’s got Minny playing. As for Las Vegas, only three Raiders teams have started the season 3-and-0 since 1990 and all made the playoffs, including 2002 when the Black and Silver advanced to the Super Bowl.
In trouble: Texans, 0-3; Chargers, 0-3.
Dishonourable mention: Packers, 1-2.
Houston boasted the NFL’s best D last year and were a sexy pre-season pick by many pundits to be Super Bowl bound this year. Oops. Chargers are also supposed to contend, but so far they look just awful. Green Bay got absolutely schooled by an underdog Falcons team in an embarrassing Week 3 Monday Night home-opener beatdown that exposed some alarming weaknesses on both sides of the ball for yet another would-be Super Bowl contender.