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  • Alouette, gentille alouette, Alouette, je te plumerai.

    Concordes. Bulldogs. Hornets. Winged Wheelers. Indians. These are some of the names that have been used by Montreal’s football teams over the years. The Montreal Football Club was founded in 1872 and were a member of the Quebec Rugby Football Union. In 1907, Montreal joined Ottawa, Toronto, and Hamilton in forming the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU), the precursor to the CFL’s East Division.

    The original Montreal Alouettes logo
    The original Montreal Alouettes logo
    (via sportslogos.net)

    When the IRFU (also known as the Big Four) returned to play in 1945 following the Second World War, Montreal’s team was called the Hornets. Unfortunately, for Montreal football fans, the Hornets finished in last place. The following year, Montreal’s IRFU entry was reorganized, and the Montreal Alouettes were born.

    “Montreal’s Football Entry Named Alouettes.” Ottawa Journal, 21 May 1946, p. 18.
    Officials from the new Montreal Alouettes (Montreal Gazette, 21 May 1946, p. 16.)

    The Montreal Alouettes were founded by Leo Dandurand and Lew Hayman among others. Hayman had led the Toronto Argonauts to several Grey Cups, bringing instant credibility back to Montreal football.

    McGowan, Lloyd. “Take It From Hayman Grid Team a Lew-Lu.” Montreal Star, 21 May 1946, p. 24.

    According to the Alouettes’ website, Messrs. Dandurand and Hayman decided to name the new football club the Alouettes after hearing men singing the Quebecois children’s song Alouette. Alouette is the French word for lark. As in the bird. Now, any Canadian school-aged child can easily recognise the popular song. It is often used to teach English-speaking students the names of various body parts in French and in my humble opinion is one of the catchiest songs around.

    Check out the video below produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 1944. It features the Alouette song along with an animated paper cutout presentation by Norman McLaren and René Jodoin.

    There is a strong connection to the 425 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force. This French-Canadian unit of the RCAF was active during the Second World War and was nicknamed the “Alouette Squadron.” Their motto? Je te plumerai, of course. It’s not surprising that Montreal adopted the Alouette moniker in honour of the Alouette Squadron following the conclusion of the war.

    The Als – the oft-used abbreviation – represented professional football in Montreal through to the early 1980s. Then, after an ownership controversy in 1982 the team folded only to be quickly replaced by a new franchise called the Montreal Concordes. After playing as the Concordes for four seasons, the team readopted the Alouettes name for 1986. Sadly, the renaissance was short lived as the Alouettes ceased operations on the eve of the 1987 CFL season.

    The Montreal Stallions

    In the early 1990s, the Canadian Football League added several teams in the United States as part of an American expansion plan. While most of the expansion teams struggled on and off the field, one major exception was the Baltimore Stallions.

    The Stallions were a dominant force and played in the Grey Cup in both years of their brief existence, winning the championship in 1995. The team also enjoyed great support from the fans in Baltimore and easily led the CFL in attendance. But in 1996 the National Football League announced it would return to Baltimore, causing the Stallions to look for new pastures.

    Ultimately, that new home was to be Montreal. In February 1996, the Stallions left Maryland for Quebec. While the team was initially referred to as the Montreal Stallions, it was generally assumed that the team would be rebranded. And it was obvious to all what that “new” name should be. Thus, after a nine-year absence in the CFL the Montreal Alouettes were back in business.

    “Montreal Alouettes back in business.” Hamilton Spectator, 29 February 1996, p. 29.

    This is the ninth of a series of posts that will explore the stories behind the names of the existing Canadian Football League teams. See the previous post on the Ottawa Redblacks.

  • Red and Black Rough Riding Renegades

    Source:Government of Canada. Photo: Cpl Heather Tiffany

    The colours red and black have long been associated with the city of Ottawa and its various football teams throughout the years. Pay a visit to Parliament Hill or to Rideau Hall, and you will see the Ceremonial Guards donning their traditional black and red uniforms. The Ottawa Football Club, founded in 1876, eventually adopted red and black (and white) as their team colours. This is the team that would become known as the Ottawa Rough Riders in October 1898.

    The story behind the Rough Rider name is clouded in mystery. The “official” line is that Ottawa adopted the name Rough Riders as some sort of tribute to future U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt’s regiment (called the Rough Riders) in the Spanish-American War in 1898. But there is no mention of this connection in local newspapers at the time. Why would a football team in Ottawa be named after a regiment fighting a war that had absolutely nothing to do with Canada, anyway? It really doesn’t make much sense.

    Another suggestion is that the name derives from the lumberjacks or log drivers who used to ride logs down the Ottawa River. Again, though, there isn’t any reference to lumberjacks or log drivers in Ottawa newspapers around the time the football team started using the name.

    Perhaps the Ottawas (yes, they were called that, too) follow the same “rough rider” origins as the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The Regina Roughriders adopted the name in 1924, a reference to the trainers who broke wild horses in the west. In the 1960s and 1970s the Ottawa Rough Riders used a cowboy riding a bucking horse atop a football as their logo. And their mascot was a guy named Okee the Cowboy. So, who knows?

    But there is strong evidence that the Rough Rider name given to Ottawa’s football team had nothing to do with a Teddy Roosevelt tribute or lumberjacks or horse-riding cowboys at all. Instead, the “rough rider” label was most likely used as an insult by a Hamilton journalist. See, in October 1898 the Hamilton Tigers and Ottawa Football Club were involved in an intense couple of games that would determine the champion of the Ontario Rugby Football Union. Ottawa had quite the reputation of being an aggressive or “rough” team. Some back-and-forth trash talk between journalists in Ottawa and Hamilton was almost as intense as the on-field rivalry. The Ottawa Journal accused the Hamilton press of maligning their team by calling them “thugs, “murderers, and “rough riders.”

    Hamilton Spectator reporter C.A. Mitchell calls Ottawa football players “roughriders” (The Ottawa Citizen, 17 October 1898, p. 6.)
    Another Hamilton reporter refers to Ottawa as “Captain Kenney’s rough riders”. Kenney was the Ottawa captain. (“The Tigers at Work.” The Ottawa Journal, 19 October 1898, p. 6.)

    Ultimately, The Ottawa Football Club embraced the insult and began wearing the Rough Rider moniker as a badge of honour. Literally. The team made up pins with the Rough Rider name and distributed them to fans travelling to Hamilton for the second game. It’s entirely possible that the team piggy backed on the “Roosevelt Rough Riders” that were in the news at the time, but the actual origins of football rough riders centred around their reputed rough style of play on the field.

    A reference by Ottawa Citizen reporter to “Roosevelt Kenny” alluding to his hero status after the October 29 rematch between Ottawa and Hamilton. (“The Tiger Hunter’s Laugh.” The Hamilton Spectator, 1 November 1898, p. 4.)
    The Ottawa press accusing the Hamilton press of maligning the Ottawa Football Club by calling them “murderers,” “thugs,” and “rough riders.” (“Ottawa’s Position.” The Ottawa Journal, 31 October 1898, p. 6.)

    Unfortunately, the Ottawa Rough Riders folded following the 1996 CFL season, ending a 120-year football tradition. In 2002, a new CFL team was founded called the Ottawa Renegades. The Renegades, too, adopted red and black as team colours. However, the Renegades met the same fate as the Rough Riders after playing only four seasons.

    It wasn’t until 2014 that the Canadian Football League would return to the Nation’s Capital. There was certainly some support for the new team to be called the Rough Riders. However, Saskatchewan objected to it, and the name didn’t carry the same weight for younger football fans who were either too young or not even born yet to have any recollection of the old Ottawa Rough Riders.

    In the lead up to the CFL’s return, fans were asked to vote online for the new team’s name. The options included the Rush, Nationals, Voyageurs, Raftsmen, and Redblacks.  On June 8, 2013, the team announced that its new name would be the Ottawa REDBLACKS. The nickname is capitalized for marketing purposes. In French, the team is known as the Rouge et Noir.

    The new name was meant with mixed reviews. Detractors suggested it was a made-up word while others pointed to the New Zealand All Blacks, that country’s national rugby team, as an example of a successful moniker named simply after team colours. Surely, Ottawa’s new team could be seen through the same lens.

    In the end, football fans in Ottawa rallied around their new team. The Red and Black plays homage to the old Ottawa Rough Riders’ colours, the Ceremonial Guards, as well as the plaid jackets worn by the great lumberjacks of the area. The Ottawa REDBLACKS name sounds like a perfect solution, really. And it sure beats the Ottawa Murderers or Ottawa Thugs, doesn’t it?

    A special thanks to Chris Sinclair and Ian Symes who pointed me in the right direction when it came to the origins behind the Ottawa Rough Riders name. Thanks, guys. – RF

    Further reading:

    https://redandblackrecall.blogspot.com/2021/05/that-whole-name-thing.html

    https://cfldb.ca/faq/teams

    This is the eigth of a series of posts that will explore the stories behind the names of the existing Canadian Football League teams. See the previous post on the Toronto Argonauts.

  • The First Canadian Football Drafts

    It’s Draft Day in the Canadian Football League. Today is the day when the CFL’s nine teams divvy up the incoming top Canadian players. It’s done in an orderly fashion through a number of rounds to allow for competitive fairness and to encourage parity.

    In the early days of Canadian football, players tended to be locally based so there was really no need for a draft. Even as the game became more professional, teams selected players based on territorial rights.

    In 1952, the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (IRFU) aka the Big Four experimented with a draft. The draft allowed the four teams (Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal) to name players who would then be off limits to the other clubs unless an agreement could be reached between the teams.

    Source: “Big Four Draft List Complete For Campaign.” The Montreal Star, 12 July 1952, p. 22.

    In 1953, the Big Four draft became more formalized. The draft was limited to forty Canadian players from five universities: McGill, Queen’s, the University of Toronto, McMaster, and the University of Western Ontario.

    The Montreal Alouettes selected Doug McNichol, a defensive lineman, from the University of Western Ontario in the first pick overall.

    “Alouettes Draft Doug McNichol.” The Montreal Star, 24 January 1953, p. 25.
    Image of Doug McNichol card courtesy of the Vintage Football Card Gallery.

    It wasn’t until 1956 that a Canada-wide draft was held.

  • Canada’s First National Commissioner of Football

    As the CFL formally introduces Stewart Johnston as its new Commissioner this week, Canadian Football History looks back at the very first CFL Commissioner: Gerald Sydney Halter.

    G. Sydney Halter, the CFL’s First Commissioner

    Sydney Halter was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He held various roles, including treasurer and president, in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers organization before being named the Commissioner of the Western Interprovincial Football Union in 1953.

    “Appointment of Sydney Halter.” The Calgary Herald, 31 March 1953, p. 25.

    In 1956, he became the Registrar of the Canadian Football Council (CFC), a newly formed umbrella organization for both the WIFU and the eastern Interprovincial Rugby Football Union (the “Big Four”).

    Well regarded in football circles across the country, Sydney Halter was named “Canada’s first national commissioner of football” when the Canadian Football League was established by the CFC in 1958. By the way, I totally think the CFL should adopt “National Commissioner of Football” as the official job title for its top role.

    Described as a chain-smoking bachelor or “loner” by some, Sydney Halter wielded quite a bit of power in his role as Canada’s professional football boss. The article below (click on them to enlarge) is lengthy but well worth the read. It portrays Halter as a straight shooter and touches on how he didn’t hesitate to deliver fines to players and teams – or fans who interfered in the game. Apparently, home fans tackling opposing players from scoring touchdowns was a thing. Yikes.

    O’Brien, Andy. “Czar of Our $7,000,000 Grid Industry.” The Hamilton Spectator, 8 March 1958, p. 90.
    O’Brien, Andy. “Czar of Our $7,000,000 Grid Industry.” The Hamilton Spectator, 8 March 1958, p. 91.

    Sydney Halter served as the CFL’s commissioner until 1966. He was an early advocate for an interlocking schedule between the East and the West. A lawyer by profession, he also served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and held leadership positions in other Canadian sporting organizations outside of football.

    Sydney Halter is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, inducted in 1966, as “the architect of the modern-day Canadian Football League.” He died in 1990. He was Jewish and was inducted posthumously into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.

  • The Legendary Toronto Argonauts

    They are one of the oldest professional sports teams in North America. For decades, they were the premier summer sporting attraction in Toronto. They are the legendary Toronto Argonauts – commonly known as the Argos.

    Argonaut Rowing Club logo
    Argonaut Rowing Club logo

    The Argos were founded by the Toronto-based Argonaut Rowing Club on October 4, 1873. Playing rugby football allowed the rowers to keep in shape and build up strength. Many members of the Argonaut Rowing Club had connections to the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England. So, the club adopted Oxford Blue and Cambridge Blue as their official colours – hence the term “Double Blue” – a nickname still used by the Argos today.

    The Argonauts played their first rugby football game against Hamilton on October 18, 1873, winning by one goal and one touchdown to nothing at the University of Toronto. A rematch the following week in Hamilton, saw the home side securing the victory. This early home-and-home series served as a prelude to what would later become one of the CFL’s fiercest rivalries.

    An account of the first football game between the Argonauts and Hamilton (The Hamilton Spectator, 20 October 1873, p 3.)
    The rematch in Hamilton vs. the Argonauts (The Hamilton Spectator, 28 October 1873, p 3.)

    So, what exactly is an Argonaut?

    To answer this question, you need to go back in history – way back – to 1400 BC or earlier. The Argonauts were great oarsmen of Greek mythology. According to legend, Jason and the Argonauts set sail on a ship named the Argo in their quest for the Golden Fleece. Over the years, the Argos have embraced this Greek mythology connection by incorporating imagery such as shields and ancient Greek warriors into their logos and uniforms. Their mascot is Jason the Argonaut.

    The Argo painting by Greek artist Konstantinos Volanakis

    Because of their rowing club roots, the Argos are often referred to as the Boatmen or the Scullers. The Argonaut Rowing Club continued to operate the Argos until 1956 when they sold the football team to private investors.

    Like their ancient namesakes, who ultimately captured the Golden Fleece, the Toronto Argonauts continue their annual quest for the Grey Cup, having won the national championship a record 19 times – earning them their own place in the annals of history.

    Further reading:

    History of the Argonaut Rowing Club

    This is the seventh of a series of posts that will explore the stories behind the names of the existing Canadian Football League teams. See the previous post on the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.