The Grey Cup, the championship of the Canadian Football League, will be contested for the 102nd time on Sunday in Vancouver. The Calgary Stampeders, the best team in the league by a wide margin in the regular season and the Western Division champions, will meet the Eastern Division champion Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Calgary is here thanks to a dominant thrashing of the Edmonton Eskimos in Western Conference final by a 43-18 final score. Hamilton was almost as dominant, beating Montreal 40-24 hours earlier. The Stampeders are a strong favorite in this one. The line opened at -8, and it quickly jumped to 8.5. It wouldn't be surprising at all to see it jump even further.

Here are eight factors to consider when looking to pick a winner in Canada's biggest annual party:

Team history: Despite being two of just nine teams in the CFL, these squads have met in the Grey Cup only twice before. In 1998 the Stamps won 26-24 in Winnipeg. The next year, Hamilton got revenge, rolling to a 32-21 win in Vancouver. I was at the second game, and the flight back to Calgary that night may have been the most depressing 90 minutes of my entire life.

Head-to-head: The teams met twice this year, with Calgary winning both. They won 10-7 at home in Week 3 in a truly ugly game and then 30-20 in Hamilton four weeks later. Neither game teaches us much about this game, though. Calgary was without their best player, running back Jon Cornish, both times. Hamilton won seven of their last nine games to finish 9-9, so they were a different - and much worse - team in the first half of the season. They were also not yet playing in their brand new stadium in this game, so their home-field advantage was not significant.

Jon Cornish: Cornish, the running back from the Kansas Jayhawks, is simply the best player in the CFL - and it's not really close. He won the rushing title this year by 152 yards, and he did that despite playing only nine of the team's 18 games because of various injuries. He averaged 7.8 yards per carry and is all but unstoppable. Against the Eskimos in the playoff game he had 174 yards of total offense and two touchdowns - and he did that despite not being at full strength. If Hamilton can't stop him - and no one really has this year - then they aren't going to win. Hamilton has the top run defense in the league to make this matchup interesting. Of course, Edmonton is second best against the run, and Cornish torched them all three times he played them.

Quarterbacks: Devoted college football fans will know both young quarterbacks here. Hamilton's Zach Collaros starred at Cincinnati. He's in his second year of meaningful action and first in Hamilton. He was injured early in the season, and his return to action coincided exactly with the team's turnaround. He's not flashy, but he mostly avoids mistakes. Calgary's Bo Levi Mitchell started out at SMU but left after two years for Eastern Washington where he was a star. He is in his third year in Calgary but his first as undisputed starter. He has quite simply been better than Collaros this year - more productive by many measures - though he has better tools to work with.

Calgary big-game woes: The Stampeders have been the best team in the CFL over the last nine years or so. They have just one Grey Cup to show for it - in 2008. Since then they have finished first in the West three times and second twice, yet they have made the Grey Cup only one other time - and they lost a rough game. They are the Atlanta Braves of the CFL - regular-season superstars who fold in the playoffs. They have said all the right things about how this year will be different, but we can't believe it until we see it.

Coaching: Calgary's John Hufnagel won the Grey Cup in his first year with Calgary in 2008. He also won a Grey Cup as a backup QB with Winnipeg in 1984 and another as Calgary's offensive coordinator in 1992 when Doug Flutie was the quarterback. He also has a Super Bowl win when he was Tom Brady's quarterback coach with the Patriots. He has an impressive 89-36-1 regular-season record but is just 6-5 in the playoffs. Hamilton's Kent Austin, also a former CFL quarterback, doesn't have the big-game issues that Hufnagel does. This is just his third year as a CFL head coach, and it's his third Grey Cup appearance. He won it in 2007 with Saskatchewan then left to be offensive coordinator at Ole Miss and then head coach at Cornell. He returned to the league last year and lost the Grey Cup with Hamilton in Saskatchewan to Saskatchewan last year. His regular season is just 31-23, and this is the first year he has won his division - and it was one of the weakest divisions in league history. He is 6-1 in the playoffs, though.

ATS Performance: Calgary was the top betting team in the league with a 12-5-1 ATS record. Hamilton was a less impressive 9-9 ATS, though they were a much more impressive 6-3 ATS in the last nine. Both teams easily covered the spread in their lone playoff game.

Away from home: Both teams were 7-2 at home, so they enjoyed a distinct home-field advantage. This is a road game for both teams, though. Calgary was 8-1 away from home, while Hamilton was an underwhelming 2-7. Hamilton was, however, 6-3 ATS on the road, which is only somewhat worse than Calgary's 7-1-1 ATS mark. Both teams played once at B.C Place - Calgary won, and Hamilton lost.

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