The 1956 plane crash that claimed the lives of five Canadian football players garnered widespread newspaper coverage across Canada and parts of the United States.
Melvin Becket, Mario DeMarco, Gordon Sturtridge, and Ray Syrnyk of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Calvin Jones of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were aboard Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 when it crashed into a remote area of British Columbia.
Here is a sampling of news articles about the tragedy:
On Sunday, December 9, 1956, tragedy struck Canadian football when five professional players lost their lives in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.
Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 left Vancouver that evening bound for Calgary with 62 passengers and crew onboard. Among the passengers were four members of the Saskatchewan Roughriders (Melvin Becket, Mario DeMarco, Gordon Sturtridge, and Ray Syrnyk) and Calvin Jones of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. They were returning from Vancouver, where the 1956 Canadian Football Council all-star game was played the previous day.
About an hour after takeoff, the plane crashed into Mount Slesse, near Chilliwack, BC. All 62 people aboard the aircraft died. The crash site is in a remote area of British Columbia, which made recovery efforts virtually impossible. The remains of both the plane and the victims remain at the site to this day.
Here is a closer look at the five players who were lost in the disaster:
Melvin Becket was a native of Chicago, Illinois. He was drafted by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers but opted to play for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. His wife was expecting their child just after Christmas.
Mario DeMarco was an American from New Jersey. He and Melvin Becket were not only teammates; they were also business partners of a local gas station in Regina. The DeMarco–Becket Memorial Trophy is awarded to the Most Outstanding Offensive Lineman in the CFL’s West Division.
Calvin Jones was an African-American from Ohio who came to Canada to play professional football with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers after a standout college career at the University of Iowa. He missed an earlier flight out of Vancouver so was instead put on the ill-fated TCA Flight 810.
Gordon Sturtridge was a native of Winnipeg, where he started his professional football career. He was a three-time western all-star and played four seasons with Saskatchewan. His wife Mildred was also aboard the flight. They left behind three young children.
Ray Syrnyk was a native of Saskatoon and played on the 1953 Saskatoon Hilltops junior championship team. He was the youngest (22) of the five players lost.
Find A Grave Memorial for Trans-Canada Airlines Flight 810 Victims
Sources:
The Province, 10 December 1956
The Regina Leader-Post, 10 December 1956
The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, 10 December 1956
Recently, Marv Levy – a legend in both Canadian and American football – celebrated his 100th birthday. He was born on August 3, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
After several college and professional coaching gigs in the United States, Marv Levy headed north in 1973 to become the new head coach of the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes.
In 1974, his second season at the helm in Montreal, Levy guided the Alouettes to a 9-5-2 regular season record to finish first in the Eastern Division. After knocking off Ottawa in the Eastern Final, Levy’s Alouettes defeated Edmonton 20-7 to win the Grey Cup.
Levy’s quick success in the CFL earned him the 1974 Coach of the Year. He was presented with the Annis Stukus Trophy (the trophy awarded to the CFL’s top coach) by Mr. Annis Stukus himself on January 15, 1975 at league meetings in Edmonton.
Montreal and Edmonton met again in the Grey Cup in 1975. This time Edmonton came out on top. But in the 1977 Grey Cup, the Alouettes crushed Edmonton 41-6 on an icy turf at the Olympic Stadium.
In his five years as head coach of the Montreal Alouettes, Marv Levy led the team to three Grey Cups, winning two of them. Not bad.
In 1978, he returned to the United States to coach in the National Football League. His most successful run in the NFL was with the Buffalo Bills. Unfortunately, Levy’s regular season success in Buffalo didn’t translate into championships. His Bills failed to win a Super Bowl despite four straight appearances from 1990 to 1993.
Marv Levy was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001 and into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2021. He is one of only two head coaches to have coached in both a Grey Cup and a Super Bowl, the other being Bud Grant.
Here’s to Marv Levy, the Canadian Football League’s Coach of the Year in 1974, who can now add Centenarian to his long list of titles and accomplishments.
For eons, the Canadian Football League published Media Guides or Fact Books for its teams. These little handbooks were meant to familiarize local journalists with the players and coaching staff of the team they were covering. They included biographies, statistics, records, and team histories.
Team media guides were also a great little souvenir for the savvy football fan. I have several in my own collection I like to peruse every now and then.
The CFL still produces them at least in electronic form. At least for some teams. I’m not sure if the league still offers print copies, though. It looks like they’ve met the same fate as game day programs and printed tickets, which is unfortunate.
Anyway, I thought what better way to spend the dog days of summer than by taking a look at some of these CFL media guides from the 1960s (or the late 1950s in a couple of cases). It was an exciting decade for the CFL and Canadian football.
Here are some photos of the media guides (front and back covers) for each CFL team from that era:
The above photos are courtesy of the good folks at the Canadian Football Research Society.
On July 1, 1980, a young man jogged onto the field at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa to perform the ceremonial kickoff prior to the CFL exhibition game between the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
The crowd of almost 17,000 gave the 21-year-old a standing ovation. He wasn’t an ordinary 21-year-old by any stretch of the imagination. No, he was extraordinary in every sense of the word. He had one leg, having lost his other to cancer. Lansdowne Park was the latest stop on what he billed as his “Marathon of Hope” across Canada to raise money for cancer research. Of course, I’m talking about Terry Fox.
We Canadians are all familiar with Terry Fox, his story, and his legacy. I was only four years old (not even) at the time of the Marathon of Hope, but I do have some vague recollections of seeing coverage about it on TV. My Grandad met him while he was running through Halifax County in Nova Scotia and took a picture of him. I still have the photo.
But we forget some of the historic imagery that Terry’s marathon produced along the way. The kickoff at the CFL game is but one example. Here’s how Ottawa Rough Rider great Tony Gabriel remembers the day:
“I fondly remember meeting our young Canadian hero, Terry Fox, on July 1, 1980. He had begun his Marathon of Hope run across the nation and had reached Ottawa. Terry did our honorary kickoff that Canada Day, and I was fortunate as one of the captains for the Ottawa Rough Riders to get to shake his hand and wish him good luck in raising needed funds for Canadian cancer research.”
Terry Fox clearly made an impression on the CFL Hall of Famer. In 2020, Gabriel launched a petition to put Terry Fox on the $5 bank note. Late last year, the government announced that Terry Fox would indeed be featured on the new note. “Over the past 45 years, the Terry Fox Foundation has raised $950 million! I am so heartened it was announced and successfully assured this year that this continuing honour for Terry will happen in the near future by the Bank of Canada,” Gabriel proudly boasts.
After leaving Ottawa – but not before hanging out with Governor General Ed Schreyer and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau – Terry continued west into Southern Ontario before heading up to Northern Ontario towards Thunder Bay. Here, he sadly announced that his cancer had returned, thus ending the Marathon of Hope. Still, he travelled a distance of 5,373 kilometres over the course of 143 days and raised millions towards his cause.
It’s been 45 years since Terry Fox captured our hearts and admiration. 45 years since the young man with one leg shared the field with some of the great CFL football stars of the day. 45 years since Terry Fox become a true Canadian legend.
And now, let’s relive what I believe is one of the most iconic moments in Canadian sports history…the Terry Fox kickoff:
Continue Terry Fox’s legacy. Join the Terry Fox Run or make a donation to the Terry Fox Foundation.