It’s the summer of 1951 in southern Ontario, and the Toronto Argonauts are in the final push to sell season tickets for the upcoming season. Here is an ad that appeared in the Toronto Star on June 14 soliciting fans to purchase (or “subscribe for”) tickets for the Argos’ home games at Varsity Stadium.
Check out the pricing for these tickets. $17.10 for the best seats in the house. That’s still less than $200 in today’s dollars. Good value for six games.
The Argos went 7-5 in 1951, third place in the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union but good enough to qualify for the postseason. One of their star players that season was a running back named Ulysses “Crazy Legs” Curtis. He was one of the first black players to don the Double Blue.
Happy New Year. As football fans across the country (im)patiently await the release of the 2025 CFL schedule, let’s go back in time to the very first CFL season schedule in 1958.
In 1956, the eastern (IRFU) and western (WIFU) professional football leagues in Canada formed an umbrella organization called the Canadian Football Council. Two years later on January 19, 1958, the CFC was renamed the Canadian Football League.
The inaugural CFL season kicked off on Thursday August 14, 1958 in Winnipeg with the Blue Bombers hosting the Edmonton Eskimos. Winnipeg won 29-21.
For the first few CFL seasons eastern and western teams did not play one another. All regular season games were against teams in their respective conferences; interconference games didn’t occur until 1961. The only time the east played the west was in the Grey Cup.
Early CFL schedule makers putting together the 1958 WIFU schedule. (Source: The Regina Leader Post, 20 January 1958, page 19.)
A quick glance tells the tale of a gruelling schedule in 1958. Eastern teams played 14 games while their western counterparts played 16. All games were played within a short 12-week schedule kicking off in August. This meant western teams often played two games within two or three days. Ouch.
CFLdb Statistics, an excellent online resource that is equally fun and informative, provides the full 1958 Canadian Football League schedule here: https://stats.cfldb.ca/league/cfl/schedule/1958/. Check it out and see how your favourite team did that year.
And now, back to waiting on the 2025 CFL schedule…
Source: The Hamilton Spectator, 17 December 1994, page 1.
Sell 12,500 season tickets. Raise $1 million in corporate sponsorship. Build adequate corporate boxes at Ivor Wynne Stadium. Provide stable ownership.
Those were the four demands set out by the Canadian Football League to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in October 1994. If the Ti-Cats failed to meet those demands by a league-imposed December 23rd deadline, a 125 year old tradition would end. Professional football would be done in Hamilton.
The so-called “Drive for ’95” was in full swing around this time thirty years ago. Daily, the Hamilton Spectator ran tallies showing how many season tickets were sold for the 1995 season. Hamilton had a meagre 6,400 season ticket holders in 1994. Doubling that figure was a daunting task.
13,287
On Friday December 16, 1994, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced that they had sold 13,287 season tickets for 1995. What was considered the most “challenging” of the four demands was met…and with time to spare.
“The people of this city are resilient and they respond” – Ticat Legend Angelo Mosca
In the weeks to follow, the corporate sponsorship quota was met and the ownership situation became clearer, paving the way for David Macdonald and George Grant to purchase the franchise. As the 1995 season drew closer, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats – for the first time in years – were financially stable. Football was alive and well in Hamilton.
The Drive for ’95 stands out for me because that was the year I became a season ticket holder myself. My parents bought season tickets for me, my brother, and my sister for Christmas in 1994. I remember my Mom somewhat panicking because she didn’t have anything physically to give us, to show us we were now season ticket holders. So, she wrote each of us a note saying, “You are invited to attend every Hamilton Tiger-Cats home game in 1995.” She also referenced where we would be sitting: Section 23. I look back now and think – wow – we’ve been season ticket holders for 30 years. – RF
An account of the forward pass. Source: The Calgary Albertan, 23 September 1929, page 6
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 football we are accustomed to watching today.
The forward pass, a staple offensive play in gridiron football, was first introduced in American football in 1906. Illegal and experimental forward passes were seen in the Canadian game over a decade later.
It wasn’t until 1929 that the Canadian Rugby Union formally allowed the use of the forward pass. Eastern teams didn’t use it right away, however. The first official completed* forward pass in Canadian football was thrown on Saturday, September 21, 1929 in Edmonton in a game between the Edmonton Eskimos and the Calgary Tigers. Calgary player Gerry Seiberling (pictured below) threw the historic pass to Ralph Losie. Calgary won the game 33-8.
Source: The Calgary Herald, 23 September 1929, page 6.
*The first legal attempted forward pass was actually thrown earlier in the day in a game in Winnipeg. The pass by Norm McLeod’s (St. John’s) was intercepted by Ronnie Gay (Tammany Tigers) in the first quarter of the game.
Source: The Edmonton Bulletin, 4 December 1922, page 7
On Saturday December 2, 1922, Queen’s University defeated the original Edmonton Elks 13-1 in the 10th Grey Cup game held at Richardson Stadium in Kingston, Ontario. In those days, the road to the national championship was a convoluted affair featuring playoffs between the champions of multiple leagues across the country. The Wikipedia article “1922 in Canadian football” does a good job illustrating the national playoff picture.
Edmonton was the champion of the Alberta Rugby Football Union and had defeated Regina and Winnipeg to emerge as the western champion. Queen’s was the champion of the Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union, the conference featuring university teams, and emerged as the eastern representative after defeating the Toronto Argonauts.
Click on the article below to read a detailed write up of the game that appeared in the Edmonton Bulletin the following Monday.
