In 1907, four football clubs - Hamilton Tigers, Toronto Argonauts, Ottawa Rough Riders, and Montreal Football Club - formed a new league called the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union. Up until then, the champions of the Ontario Rugby Football Union and the Quebec Rugby Football Union would usually square off for a Dominion championship. But there...

In 1907, four football clubs - Hamilton Tigers, Toronto Argonauts, Ottawa Rough Riders, and Montreal Football Club - formed a new league called the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union. Up until then, the champions of the Ontario Rugby Football Union and the Quebec Rugby Football Union would usually square off for a Dominion championship. But there...

They say records are made to be broken. But they aren’t talking about this one. The record I am writing about today is all but certain to remain in the books for as long as there’s a Canadian Football League. Ken Hinton Ken Hinton was born in Los Angeles, California and played his college football...

It’s hard to imagine, but up until the 1920s the forward pass was an illegal play in Canadian football. Early Canadian football resembled the game of rugby more than the pass happy version of gridiron...

Today I want to talk about fields. Canadian football fields, that is. There is still a lot of chatter about the CFL’s decision to adjust its field size in 2027, adopting a 100-yard-long field with 15-yard end zones. Previously, I have written about early Canadian football being played on 100-yard fields in the past. And...

Previously I wrote about the lowest scoring game in Canadian Football League history. Yes, that 1-0 doozy back in 1966. But what about the CFL’s highest scoring game? Ever since I’ve been a fan, CFL offences have been known to really rack up the points. This was no truer than on September 1, 1990 when...

Previously I wrote about the lowest scoring game in Canadian Football League history. Yes, that 1-0 doozy back in 1966. But what about the CFL’s highest scoring game? Ever since I’ve been a fan, CFL offences have been known to really rack up the points. This was no truer than on September 1, 1990 when...

At high school in the mid 1990s we were asked to use a new technology called the "World Wide Web” for a research project. Yours truly balked and wanted to stick with the tried-and-true volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica. I told my friend that I would give it a go but that the Internet was nothing...

Just weeks after beating Saskatchewan to win it the Ottawa Rough Riders lost the Grey Cup. To thieves. On December 20, 1969, a bandit (or bandits) snatched the Grey Cup trophy from the Riders’ offices at Lansdowne Park. News article in the Ottawa Citizen about the Grey Cup being stolen (22 December 1969). Ottawa police...

Just weeks after beating Saskatchewan to win it the Ottawa Rough Riders lost the Grey Cup. To thieves. On December 20, 1969, a bandit (or bandits) snatched the Grey Cup trophy from the Riders’ offices at Lansdowne Park. News article in the Ottawa Citizen about the Grey Cup being stolen (22 December 1969). Ottawa police...

On July 14, 1994, fans attending the CFL game at Winnipeg Stadium were in for quite the night. In a rematch of the previous year’s Grey Cup, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hosted the Edmonton Eskimos. Edmonton had beaten Winnipeg in that game and were the defending Grey Cup champions. No doubt the Winnipeg faithful were...

On August 14, 1958, the Canadian Football League played its first-ever game with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hosting the Edmonton Eskimos at Winnipeg Stadium. The new CFL was founded earlier in the year when the Canadian Football Council withdrew from the Canadian Rugby Union to become a completely separate entity, renaming itself the “Canadian Football...

1921 was a significant year in Canadian football. With the Western Canadian Rugby Football Union joining the Canadian Rugby Union, western clubs were finally eligible to compete for the Grey Cup. Article in the Regina Leader-Post about Regina initially winning the SRFU championship (31 November 1921). The Regina Rugby Club was one of the favourites...

1921 was a significant year in Canadian football. With the Western Canadian Rugby Football Union joining the Canadian Rugby Union, western clubs were finally eligible to compete for the Grey Cup. Article in the Regina Leader-Post about Regina initially winning the SRFU championship (31 November 1921). The Regina Rugby Club was one of the favourites...

My background is in sales and marketing. That’s what I studied at university, and that’s been my career for the last 25+ years. Coincidently, I discovered my interest in marketing around the same time I started following CFL football. That was back in Grade 10. As a marketer who likes history and nostalgia, I like...

That was the headline in my hometown’s newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, after the CFL’s debut in Sacramento, California. I became a CFL fan in the early 1990s. It was a tumultuous time for the Canad...

In the aftermath of the 1982 Grey Cup, which was played in a rainstorm at Exhibition Stadium, football fans in Toronto were clamouring for an indoor stadium. They got their wish when the new SkyDome hosted the 1989 CFL season opener on July 12, 1989. No more football in the rain, wind, or snow. Fans...

This is the fourth article examining some of Canadian football’s rather interesting playoff formats used over the years. Be sure to check out parts I, II, and III. 1909 was a special year in Canadian football. That’s the year when Earl Grey, who was serving as the Governor General of Canada, donated a trophy to...

In 1992, the Canadian Football League was looking to grow. Larry Smith was appointed the CFL’s new commissioner with a mandate to expand the CFL. Of course, Montreal and Halifax were high on Smith’s list of potential sites. But so, too, were several cities south of the border. One of these cities was Portland, Oregon....

The Cal Murphy statue on the northeast corner of the Princess Auto Stadium footprint perfectly captures what was the game-day version of the man. It features the long-time boss of the Winnipeg Blue Bo...

This is the third part of an ongoing series of articles looking back at some of Canadian football’s quirky playoff formats. Today, we’re going to go west and examine a rather peculiar set up for the 1906 season of the Manitoba Rugby Football Union. The MRFU was founded in 1892 and included a number of...

It’s been 60 years since Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed Canada’s national flag featuring the prominent red maple leaf. The maple leaf is arguably the most Canadian symbol of all and has been used to re...

Most football fans like a lot of scoring. You really can’t beat seeing two teams going back and forth and lighting up the scoreboard. Of course, a good defensive matchup can still make for some entertaining football now and then. But back in 1966, a game between Montreal and Ottawa redefined the meaning of a...

We all remember the “firsts” of things. Like the first day of school or a first date. We know the first person to do this or that. Or something that happens for the first time in history. You get the ...

This is the second in an ongoing series of articles looking back at some of Canadian football’s rather quirky playoff systems used over the years. A previous article examined how tie schedules and challenge cups were used on the road to the first Dominion championship game organized by the Canadian Rugby Football Union in 1884....