Courtesy Globe and Mail:

The Montreal Alouettes yesterday filed an official protest with the CFL over a disallowed touchdown in their 19-12 loss to the B.C. Lions last Friday in Vancouver.

Montreal tailback Avon Cobourne appeared to score on an eight-yard run with less than one minute remaining in the game before Murray Clarke’s officiating crew huddled and ordered the down replayed.

The officials said they had been buzzed by the in-stadium supervisor to stop the play in order to check the game clock, and that a whistle was blown during the play.

The Alouettes dispute that any whistle was blown until after Cobourne had crossed the goal line.

When the 3-and-1 play was rerun, the Als were stopped, the Lions took over the ball and ran out the clock for the victory.

“Under the [CFL] bylaw, for a protest to be successful, it clearly states ‘intentional misapplication of a rule,’ ” said CFL commissioner Mark Cohon, who was at the Labour Day game yesterday between the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Toronto Argonauts.

“So we’ll have to look at whether there has been ‘intentional misapplication of a rule’ and we’ll start that investigation. We’ve already started lining up interviews, so it’s going to take this week. It’s an important decision.”

The commissioner would not say what the league would do if its investigation found the Montreal protest met definition of “intentional misapplication of a rule.”

“I’m not going to speculate on that until we do the investigation,” he said.

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