Normie Kwong played thirteen seasons in the CFL before becoming a sports executive and eventually, the lieutenant-governor of Alberta.
An enterprising local alderman and civic booster named Don Mackay (who later, as mayor of Calgary, began the tradition of giving visiting dignitaries and celebrities white cowboy hats) helped organize the eastbound group of Stampeders supporters – 250 human fans, and 12 horses. On the night of Tuesday, November 23, two trains, one of which was equipped with its own bar car and square-dancing car (featuring Jack Friedenberg and his orchestra) plus a baggage car adapted to carry the horses, pulled out of Calgary’s Canadian Pacific railway station, and chugged towards a city that had no idea what was about to hit it. Two Sarcee chiefs were part of the entourage, and two war veterans from the local convalescent hospital who had won their spots in a draw. The organizers planned to stage pancake breakfasts and hoedowns right in the heart of downtown Toronto, that carnival atmosphere hitherto unheard of at the Grey Cup, which to that date had been merely a football game.
On the Friday morning before Grey Cup Saturday, the train arrived at Toronto’s Union Station, and out spilled something spontaneous, unchoreographed, a little bit wild, a little bit inebriated, and a whole lot of fun. At one point, the uninhibited Calgarians crossed paths with the very core of the eastern establishment, who were assembling at the same hotel for a black-tie reception to honour Governor General Viscount Alexander. The Calgarians sang “Home On the Range” as the GG walked to the Royal York elevators, by all accounts with a great big smile on his face.
That party, and its annual return in one form or another wherever the Grey Cup game is held, came to define the event for many Canadians: the one day of the year when they can sit back, watch the big game – their own game – and really let down their hair. Years later, Globe and Mail columnist Dick Beddoes would label it the Grand National Drunk.
Jerry Keeling was the Stampeders’ quarterback for the 1971 Grey Cup game.
For a city that any Canadian football fan today would identify as one of the game’s great hotbeds, Calgary has gone through long stretches with very little to celebrate. After the historic first triumph in 1948, the Stamps would spend twenty years in the wilderness before their next Grey Cup appearance – a losing effort against Russ Jackson and his great Ottawa team in 1968. Calgary was back in 1970 with much the same squad, featuring Wayne Harris, Jerry Keeling, and Herm “Ham Hands” Harrison, but they’d lose the championship game again, this time to the Montreal Alouettes.
Finally, Cowtown claimed its second Grey Cup title in 1971, in a game that is better remembered by most CFL devotees for the team that lost – the big-money, star-studded Toronto Argonauts quarterbacked by Joe Theismann – and for two of the great gaffes in Grey Cup history: Leon McQuay’s fateful fumble, and Harry Abofs’ brain-cramp decision to kick a bouncing punt out of bounds.
The Stampeders spent much of the next two decades playing in the shadow of their great provincial rivals, the Edmonton Eskimos, though when coach Wally Buono arrived in 1990, that began to change – the Stamps represented the west in the 1991 Grey Cup game, losing to Rocket Ismail and the Toronto Argonauts on a frigid day in Winnipeg. Calgary’s fortunes changed dramatically in 1992 with the arrival of quarterback Doug Flutie, who had originally been lured to the CFL by the British Columbia Lions, with whom he played for two seasons before the Stamps’ colourful owner, Larry Ryckman, enticed him with a million-dollar contract.
Sandro DeAngelis, the most accurate place kicker in CFL history, with the Grey Cup in 2008.
A star at Boston College, famous for the original Hail Mary pass that beat the University of Miami, Flutie was small for a quarterback but a great athlete who could run and throw and improvise. During his first years as a professional, in the United States Football League and the National Football League, coaches didn’t want to adapt their game to make use of his talents, and he was too short to play the traditional drop-back passer’s role that the American game favoured. On the bigger Canadian field, though, with all receivers in motion and quarterbacks free to wander from the pocket when the situation allowed, Flutie’s physical skills and football smarts were a perfect fit.
Though he is regarded by many as the greatest player ever to compete in the CFL, Flutie, at the height of his powers, won only a single Grey Cup during his four seasons in Calgary, a 24–10 win over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1992, his first year as a Stampeder.
It was Flutie’s understudy, Jeff Garcia, who took essentially the same supporting cast and delivered Calgary another Cup, in a dramatic 26–24 win – clinched by Mark McLoughlin’s field goal on the final play of the game – over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 1998.
Calgary’s next Grey Cup triumph, in 2001, was the least likely of the bunch, as a team that finished the regular season with a record of 8–10, quarterbacked by the unheralded Marcus Crandell, defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 27–19. The arrival of quarterback Henry Burris in 2005, and coach John Hufnagel in 2008, heralded a new golden era of Calgary football, capped by a 22–14 Grey Cup victory over the Montreal Alouettes in 2008 at Olympic Stadium. By then, the Stampeders had established themselves as perennial contenders and one of the league’s best organizations.
Fred Wilmot, Ced Gyles, and Rube Ludwig at the 1948 victory parade.
Les Lear was only thirty years old in 1948, and a cutting-edge football tactician, but when it came to off-field matters, he was a strict disciplinarian and hidebound traditionalist of the old school. Heading for the championship game, he wanted his players cloistered as far from any fun as possible. During the long train ride to Toronto, they were sequestered in a locked car separate from wives, girlfriends, and the hard-partying fans. When the train stopped along the way, and the supporters dashed off to the closest liquor store, the players got out and did calisthenics – often in the snow. Upon arriving at Toronto’s Union Station, the Calgary entourage made the short walk across the street to the Royal York, while Lear took his team to a hotel and roadhouse called the Pig and Whistle in Oakville. Today, the city of Oakville is part of the Greater Toronto Area, but in 1948, it would have seemed like a quiet country village far out in the boondocks, which was just the atmosphere the coach desired. While the Cowtown crowd took over downtown, with their pancake breakfasts, square dances, and general highjinks, the Stamps lived a Spartan existence and practised in secret, with Lear paranoid about someone discovering his pet strategies – to the extent that he worried about airplanes flying over the practice field and had the team do their film study in a locked basement.
Woody Strode at the 1948 victory parade.
One of the things he was trying to keep secret was a gimmick lifted straight from the playbook of the Rough Riders – who, for the familiar reasons of eastern media bias, entered the championship game as heavy favourites. Ottawa had enjoyed great success that season employing the “sleeper” play, in which a receiver found a way to camouflage himself against the crowd of players on the sideline before springing into action and catching the other team unawares. Lear added it to the Stamps’ Grey Cup playbook – though he and his players later denied that it was planned. In fact, in a pre-game meeting with Canadian Rugby Union officials, Lear actually went so far as to ask that all players on the bench be pushed back so that Ottawa would be discouraged from employing this play, which he denigrated as bush-league tactics.
THE CULTURE OF CANADIAN FOOTBALL
IF EVER THERE WERE contrasting styles or cultures of the game, the 1948 Grey Cup brought them into sharp relief. The eastern game was much older, yet was still an exciting brand of football, as exemplified by the great Tony Golab, who led the Rough Riders into the 1948 contest. The Calgary Stampeders, however, were led not just by a group of players that was unbeaten in all fourteen games leading into the title affair, but by a loyal cowboy following that literally descended on Toronto.
In just their third full season, the Stamps posted a perfect 12–0 record in the regular season – a feat st
ill unduplicated – under rookie head coach Les Lear. On the day, they were outgained 349 yards to 264, gave up 291 rushing yards to a virtual who’s who of 1948 football, yet found ways to win with a mixture of five key elements: offence, defence, special teams, “big plays,” and fan support. Calgary forced six Ottawa fumbles, came from behind twice, and scored the game’s first touchdown on the now-outlawed “sleeper” play, giving Calgary a 5–1 lead just before halftime.
The 1948 Grey Cup truly was a game that changed “the game” itself. Reinforcing its importance is the fact that the announced attendance of 20,013 – then a Grey Cup record – was many thousands less than it might have been had Toronto’s Varsity Stadium been any bigger. Post-game accounts suggested that many more fans “had to be content with [a] radio description of the game … one cowboy watched from a telegraph pole on Bloor St.” The real impact of the 1948 Grey Cup was best summed up by one Torontonian: “This thing has done more to bring the east and the west together than the building of the railway.”
Les Lear won two Grey Cups with Calgary.
In the final moments of the second quarter, with the game still scoreless, the Stamps executed the sleeper play to perfection, pulling off a double surprise by concealing the receiver on the opposite side of the field from the two team benches. The Stampeders had the ball on the Ottawa 14-yard line. At the end of one play, Calgary end Norm Hill fell down near the sideline, and didn’t get up. Many fans in the stands at Varsity Stadium noticed him, lying prone near the sidelines, but the Ottawa players and coaches didn’t. (Legend has it that some of them were distracted, gazing into the stands, because of the arrival of figure skater and national sweetheart Barbara Ann Scott.) Another Stamp took his place in the formation. At the snap, Hill jumped up and headed for the end zone, while Ottawa defenders scrambled madly to catch up with him. Quarterback Keith Spaith faked a pass the other way, then lobbed the ball to Hill, who bobbled it momentarily. An Ottawa defender recovered in time to knock him to the ground, but the tipped ball landed back in his hands as he fell to the turf for the touchdown, giving Calgary a halftime lead. (It was the first and only time the sleeper play was employed in a Grey Cup game, though it wasn’t officially banned under CFL rules until 1961.)
In the third quarter, the Rough Riders rallied to pull ahead 7–6, and, entering the final period, appeared to have control of the game. In those tense moments, Lear didn’t just coach – he was in uniform as well, and came onto the field when he felt the need to get his players to settle down and focus.
One of the stranger plays in Grey Cup history finally, and definitively, turned the tide Calgary’s way. Scrimmaging on his own 40-yard line, Ottawa quarterback Bob Paffrath threw a lateral pass to Pete Karpuk, who was unable to catch the ball. As was the custom at the time, the referee’s horn sounded, signalling an infraction – the play was offside – but unlike the modern official’s whistle, that didn’t mean there was a stoppage in play. Apparently confused, no Ottawa player jumped on the ball. Instead, Woody Strode walked over, took a look, heard his teammate Chuck Anderson holler, “Pick it up and run like hell,” and did just that, until he was finally tackled on the Ottawa 10-yard line.
On the next play, Calgary scored the winning touchdown in a game that finished 12–7, capping an undefeated season.
Afterwards, the party at the Royal York was, understandably, one for the ages. This account was written for The Globe and Mail by William French, who would go on to enjoy a long and distinguished career as the newspaper’s literary editor. In 1948, he was a rookie reporter, fresh out of school, sent to describe the exotic events unfolding at the Royal York. And though it’s hard to miss the big-city condescension, it also sounds like he might have enjoyed the fun, despite himself.
New Year’s Eve came a little early this year.
It arrived Saturday night, when the hilarious followers of the victorious Calgary Stampeders staged a spontaneous celebration at the Royal York. They ushered in what they hope will be a new era in Canadian football.
The main lobby of the big hotel was the platform on which the howling residents of Calgary and vicinity whooped it up all evening long.
The lobby was packed from wall to wall with humanity, so much so that two singing cowpokes strumming on their guitars had to take refuge on a table-top for fear of strumming somebody’s teeth.
Once on the table, the cowboys – whose names were Oogie and Bev, not Slim and Shorty as you’d expect – were joined by a perky cowgal who took charge of the sing-song.
The mob sang everything, lustily and slightly out of tune. First came all the songs about the West, including Texas. One of the most popular was a ditty call “Vive le Cal-garee,” in which the choir gave vent to its bursting civic pride.
What was left of the goalposts arrived in the lobby shortly after the game and was put up for all to see. A foresighted bell-hop lashed them to the balcony railing.
People stood four deep around the mezzanine balcony. It was like watching a bull-fight in the arena below and space for looking was as scarce as it had been for the game in the afternoon. The spectators were a different breed than the merrymakers. They didn’t join in the singing and cheering and seemed a little puzzled by it all.
A little old lady with grey hair wanted to know the name of one of the Calgary players – any one – so she could write to Calgary and get his autograph.
Several people in the throng wore black ribbons. They were Ottawa fans in mourning for their team.
When members of the team went through the lobby on their way to the civic reception, centre of attention was Woody Strode the towering all-star end and idol of the fans. Woody was besieged by autograph hounds.
Stampeder President Tom Brooks appeared, carrying the Grey Cup, and a great cheer went up. In acknowledgment, Tom took a drink out of the symbol of Canadian grid supremacy.
There was a great bustle and cheers when five cowpunchers, each carrying a case of refreshments, passed through the lobby in Indian style. They escaped into an elevator.
After Oogie and Bev stopped a-strummin’ and plinkin’ on their geetars – their fingers were sore – the party broke up into small eddies of interest, each group singing a different song. Throughout the din, a man wearing an ogre-like rubber mask ran around kissing all of the women in sight. He got away with it, too.
The exhibition was exuberant and uninhibited, staged by a thoroughly happy group of people. Last night the Calgarians boarded their special train and started the long journey back across the prairies to the city they love.
It’s a long winter.
The 1948 Grey Cup team in their trademark Stetsons.
That “long journey back across the prairies” in fact turned out to be more of the same, another wild party train – except that, unlike on the ride to Toronto, the players were now unencumbered, free to connect with their wives or girlfriends and join in the celebrations. When the Stamps returned to Calgary, they were welcomed by a crowd of 30,000 people – that in a city with a population of just over 100,000.
A year later, the Stamps would be back in the big game, this time losing to the Montreal Alouettes. By then, a tradition had been established that continues unchanged more than half a century later. Anyone who travels to the Grey Cup game, no matter what their allegiance, can count on running into kindred spirits, often in crazy get-ups, hailing from every corner of this vast country, gathered together to celebrate. And though it remains murky as to whether a horse was ridden into the lobby of the Royal York in 1948, many a horse has been into many a hotel lobby since.
GREY CUP ECONOMICS
TICKETS FOR THE 2011 Grey Cup game in Vancouver had sold out by July 21 – more than four months (129 days) in advance of the game. The face value of tickets ranged from $125 to $375, and 54,313 fans watched the British Columbia Lions defeat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the refurbished B.C. Place Stadium. Of course, just because the tickets officially sold out doesn’t mean there wasn’t a booming secondary market, right up un
til game time.
Compare those prices to the first Grey Cup game, held at Rosedale Field in 1909. Bleacher seats were sold for 25 and 50 cents, and the best places in the house went for $1.25. In 1911, seated admission went for $1.50, while standing room in front of the main grandstand could be had for 75 cents. Fans flocked into Varsity Stadium at those prices as the national final’s popularity boomed, particularly for games held in Toronto.
Tickets remained around the $1.50 level even until the great 1948 game that saw an influx of Calgary fans. That would soon change, as Grey Cup gate receipts grew from just $19,718 in 1946 to more than $115,000 in 1951, when tickets for the Ottawa–Saskatchewan classic sold for as much as $5.65. The price hit $10 in 1956, and escalated to $15 for best seats in 1967. Gate receipts by then had gone well beyond the $300,000 mark. In 1976, the Grey Cup finally surpassed the $1,000,000 mark in gate receipts, and that figure has grown steadily ever since as fans continue to sell out the game in every CFL city. From little more than a local event in 1909 that brought in $2,616.40, the Grey Cup Festival is now a multimillion-dollar cultural event.
Other large sporting events, other championship games, have become glossily corporate and impossibly expensive, separating the haves from the have-nots, with stadiums often filled by those with no real passionate rooting interest, there simply because of connections or because it’s the place to be. The players themselves remain hidden away, and the best parties come with velvet ropes attached, with security guards at the door making sure that only the right people are granted entrance.
In a Grey Cup city, even in the security-conscious atmosphere of the twenty-first century, it is still very possible to run into one of the competing players on the street in the days before the game. It is possible – heck, likely – that a night on the town will involve running into some of the game’s legends, there to join in the festivities. And the centre of the Grey Cup isn’t a black-tie gala, isn’t a VIP-only celebration. It is in the Spirit of Edmonton room, or Riderville, or Tiger Town, or one of the other pop-up parties – as simple as a hotel ballroom, with a band on the stage and drinks available and fans packed in like sardines – where even in tough times for Canadian football the game’s beating heart resides. There is nothing else exactly like it in the great wide world of sport.
100 Grey Cups Page 6