Category: Rules & Regulations

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.

It’s now a new year, and Canadian football is still finding its footing so to speak. Good or bad pun? And the CRFU held is second Dominion championship. Sort of. Not really.

But first, imagine this completely theorical scenario. The Montreal Alouettes and the Saskatchewan Roughriders win the East and West divisions respectively. But instead of the Als and Riders squaring off in the Grey Cup, the culminating game features a team of eastern all-stars playing a team of western all-stars instead. Sound silly? Well, this theorical scenario is how the Canadian football playoffs looked in 1885.

Like the previous year, the Ontario Rugby Football Union and the Quebec Rugby Football Union both used a tie schedule format. To recap, a tie in this context is simply a pairing of teams. Rather than a balanced schedule with standings, teams were paired up and competed in a knock-out style tournament. The Kingston Daily News featured the tie schedule for the ORFU. Have a look to see how the system worked:

In 1885, the ORFU had two separate divisions, one for college teams and one for the city clubs. The winner of each division met for the Ontario Challenge Cup. In Quebec, there were only four teams – Montreal, Britannia, McGill, and Lennoxville – that competed for the Quebec Challenge Cup.

On January 30, 1885, the CRFU voted to hold an Inter-Provincial Rugby Match comprising players from Ontario and Quebec, selected by their respective unions. This new annual all-star game wasn’t actually intended to replace the Dominion championship, though. But fate had other ideas for 1885.

On October 25th, Ottawa dominated London 38-0 in Toronto to win the Ontario city division. On October 31st, Ottawa College defeated the University of Toronto by a score of 19-2 to win the college division. A week later Ottawa College defeated Ottawa City 21-0 in an all-Ottawa affair to win the Ontario Challenge Cup.

Meanwhile in Quebec, Montreal was once again that province’s dominant team. In a match to decide the winner of the Quebec Challenge Cup on October 10th, Montreal defeated rival Britannia by “two goals and several minor points to one touch.” (Montreal Gazette, 10 October 1885)

So, the stage was set for Ottawa College to travel to Montreal to play the Quebec champion in what would be the second Dominion championship. Except, it didn’t happen. In 1885, Montreal was engulfed in a smallpox epidemic. Public health concerns prompted a reluctant Ottawa College to forgo the trip to Montreal. Instead, suggestions were made for Montreal to travel to Ottawa and play the championship there.

There was a rather testy exchange in the Montreal Gazette between a writer from Ottawa named “Sport” and Mr. R. Stirling, the secretary of the Montreal Football Club. “Sport” accused Montreal of “funking.” That’s old British slang for backing out because of fear. Stirling refuted the accusation and explained that logistics and costs simply made the proposal impractical. So that was the end of that. There was no Dominion championship game played in 1885.

Instead, we were left with the first Inter-Provincial Rugby Match as being the pinnacle of the 1885 football season in Canada. Played on November 12th, which was Thanksgiving Day, in Toronto the Quebec all-stars scored 3 points over their Ontario counterparts. Because the rules of the day stated that a majority of 4 points were needed for a victory, the game was declared a draw.

Check out the Montreal Gazette’s great summary of this game, as well as other games (including a soccer game) played on Thanksgiving Day in 1885.

So, in short…no Dominion championship. An all-star game ending in a draw instead. And some good old mudslinging in the press. That was the Canadian football playoff picture in 1885.

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Sources:
Canadian Football History Key Historical Milestones and Dates -1861-1889 by Robert Sproule
Hamilton Spectator, 31 January 1885
Hamilton Spectator, 26 October 1885
Kingston Daily News, 13 June 1885
Montreal Gazette, 12 October 1885
Montreal Gazette, 3 November 1885
Montreal Gazette, 4 November 1885
Montreal Gazette, 14 November 1885
Montreal Gazette, 16 November 1885
Montreal Gazette, 18 November 1885

With the recent announcement that the CFL is changing its playoff format in 2027, I thought it would be an interesting learning experience to revisit some of the old playoff systems used in Canadian football, starting in 1884.

When the Canadian Rugby Football Union was relaunched in 1884, one of its mandates was to establish a national championship between the Ontario Rugby Football Union and the Quebec Rugby Football Union. Both the ORFU and QRFU held their own competitions using what was called the Tie Schedule. In this context, a tie refers to a match pairing between two teams and not a draw. Basically, Team A played Team B and the winner played Team C. The winner of that game played Team D and so forth until only one team remained undefeated. It was more or less a knock-out style tournament as opposed to a balanced round-robin schedule like the regular season we are accustomed to today.

In Quebec, the Montreal Football Club and the Britannia Football Club met on October 11th with Montreal securing a 14-2 victory. On the same day, McGill defeated Bishop’s by a score of 50-0. The following week, the two victors met with Montreal coming out on top 21-0 to win the QRFU. Montreal had defeated Britannia, McGill, as well as the Kingston Cadets.

Quebec also used the Challenge System where a team could “challenge” the champion, If the challengers won, they became the champions; if the champions won, they remained champions. On November 1st, Britannia challenged Montreal for the Quebec Union’s Challenge Cup. Montreal scored a rouge, the only point scored in the entire game. According to a report in the Montreal Gazette, the game was declared a draw. Montreal retained their title and was declared the Quebec champion. Apparently, this game was played using the old English Rugby rules. I presume this is the reason the game was officially a draw as only goals and tries were counted in English Rugby rules. Why this particular game was played using old English Rugby rules instead of the emerging Canadian-style game is rather odd. The article in the Gazette alludes to the game being rather boring.

In Ontario, fourteen teams were eligible to compete in the playoffs for the Ontario Cup. Five of these teams chose not to play. The remaining nine – Toronto, University of Toronto, Hamilton, London, Peterboro, Strathroy, Queen’s University, Royal Military College, and Ottawa – were paired up in a knock-out style tournament lasting four rounds…well, almost four rounds. In the final game for the Ontario Cup, Toronto was supposed to host Ottawa. But Ottawa forfeited the game, leaving Toronto as the Ontario champions.

So, that’s how the two provincial champions were crowned in 1884. Montreal was declared the Quebec champion after a draw against Britannia in a game that was played using different rules. Toronto was the declared the Ontario champion after Ottawa didn’t show up. A bit anti-climatic, eh?

Nevertheless, the scene was set for the first-ever Rugby Football Championship of the Dominion. Held at the University of Toronto on November 6th, the Montreal Football Club handily defeated the Toronto Football Club by a score of 30-0 in front of 1500 fans. Montreal scored two goals, three tries, and two rouges.

Despite the informalities and quirks associated with the season schedules used at the time, the domination of the Montreal Football Club arguably proved that they were strongest team in Canada and worthy of being called Dominion champions.

Something else stood out to me when researching the 1884 season. There were several more exhibition games played after the Dominion championship in Toronto. For instance, after losing the championship game Toronto travelled to Montreal to play the Britannias. Imagine the losing team of the Grey Cup playing a meaningless road game the following week? Ah, such are the peculiarities of good old Canadian football.

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Special thanks to Robert Sproule who shared with me some of his research on early Canadian football during this period. It helped shed some light on on the tie schedule format and general structure of the leagues.

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Sources:
Canadian Football Timeline (Canadian Football Research Society)
Important Dates in Canadian Football by Bob Sproule, Coffin Corner, 1991
Montreal Gazette, 3 November 1884
Montreal Gazette, 7 November 1884
Montreal Star, 3 November 1884
Toronto Mail, 4 November 1884
Toronto Mail, 6 November 1884