Edmonton

Edmonton ⁱ/ˈɛdməntən/ is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region.

The city had a population of 877,926 in the 2014 census, making it Alberta's second-largest city and Canada's fifth-largest municipality. This population represents 66 percent of the total 2014 population of 1,328,300 within the Edmonton census metropolitan area (CMA), Canada's fifth-largest CMA by population. Edmonton is the northernmost North American city with a metropolitan population over one million. A resident of Edmonton is known as an Edmontonian.

Edmonton's historic growth has been facilitated through the absorption of five adjacent urban municipalities (Strathcona, North Edmonton, West Edmonton, Beverly and Jasper Place) and a series of annexations ending in 1982. Edmonton serves as the northern anchor of the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor. Known as the "Gateway to the North", the city is a staging point for large-scale oil sands projects occurring in northern Alberta and large-scale diamond mining operations in the Northwest Territories.

Edmonton Eskimos

The Edmonton Eskimos are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta, competing in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Eskimos play their home games at Commonwealth Stadium and are the third-youngest franchise in the CFL. The Eskimos were founded in 1949, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895. The Eskimos are the most successful CFL franchise of the modern era (1954) having won the league's Grey Cup championship fourteen times, second overall only to the Toronto Argonauts who have won sixteen. This includes a three-peat between 1954 and 1956 and an unmatched five consecutive wins between 1978 and 1982, and most recently in 2015.

The Eskimos hold a North American professional sports record by qualifying for the playoffs for 34 consecutive years between 1972 and 2005. Edmonton has had the most regular season division championships in the modern era with 21, with their most recent coming in 2015. The team has a rivalry with the Calgary Stampeders and are one of the three community owned teams currently operating in the CFL.

Free agent

In professional sports, free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with any club or franchise, i.e. not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present, but who is allowed to solicit offers from other teams. In some circumstances, the free agent's options are limited by league rules.

Types

Terms

Unrestricted free agent

Unrestricted free agents are players without a team. They have either been released from their club, had the term of their contract expire without a renewal, or were not chosen in a league's draft of amateur players. These people, generally speaking, are free to entertain offers from all other teams and to decide with whom to sign a contract.

Restricted free agent

The specific rules of restricted free agency vary among the major professional sports, but in principle it means that a player is free to solicit contract offers from other teams; however, this player cannot sign with the competing club if the current club matches (or in some leagues come within 10%) the terms of the offered contract. For a restricted free agent, some leagues require the competing team to offer up to the original team a draft pick(s) when an offer is not matched, as compensation for losing the player.