In 1992, the Canadian Football League was looking to grow. Larry Smith was appointed the CFL’s new commissioner with a mandate to expand the CFL. Of course, Montreal and Halifax were high on Smith’s list of potential sites. But so, too, were several cities south of the border. One of these cities was Portland, Oregon.
Located in the northwestern United States, Portland was a mid-sized city with a suitable stadium and a credible ownership group with the needed capital to both pay for and operate an expansion franchise. It was close enough to the border so that something “Canadian” didn’t sound too foreign. Heck, it was almost as if it could be a natural rival for the BC Lions. Paul Allen, the owner of the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team, was the man hoping to bring the CFL to Oregon.
To test the Portland market, the CFL played an exhibition game on Thursday, June 25, 1992 at Civic Stadium. The game was a rematch of the 1991 Grey Cup between the Toronto Argonauts and the Calgary Stampeders. The Argos had Raghib “the Rocket” Ismail as their marquee player. Calgary had the recently acquired future Hall of Famer Doug Flutie as their new quarterback. The stage was set for a great exhibition of Canadian football for the American fans featuring the CFL’s two biggest stars.
In the lead up to the exhibition game, the Portland media seemed quite eager to welcome the CFL to town. Ads ran in the Oregonian newspaper promoting “fast-break,” “high flying” and “wide open” CFL football. Unsurprisingly, the Rocket was heavily promoted. Even the Trail Blazers’ Jerome Kersey was featured in advertising for the game.
A decent crowd of 15,362 fans turned out on a hot Thursday night to watch the game. All in all, reviews were positive despite a rather lacklustre game. Calgary won 20-1. Yes, Americans got to see a Canadian rouge scored. In the end, though, no CFL expansion team came to Portland. Instead, Sacramento was awarded the CFL’s first U.S.-based expansion team. After a few years the CFL’s foray into the United States was over. Despite lots of talk and speculation, the CFL-in-Portland story was limited to a single exhibition game only.
100 yard long fields are included in the Johnston Rules announced by CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnston recently. The 1992 exhibition game in Portland was the last time the CFL played on a field that was 100 yards in length. The standard CFL field didn’t fit at Portland Civic Stadium without heavy modifications, so the game was played on an American length football field that included ten-yard end zones. Have a look at the screen shots below to get a taste of what Canadian football on 100 yards will (sort of) look like in the future.
The Johnston Rules are coming to Canadian football. Proponents argue they will open up the Canadian game and lead to more exciting touchdowns. Opponents grumble they represent creeping Americanization of our unique brand of football. Others shrug their shoulders and wonder what all the fuss is about. Wherever you land on this spectrum one thing is clear: CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnston has introduced sweeping changes to Canadian football.
Now, there are plenty of places online to discuss (or vent about) these changes. But here at Canadian Football History, we focus on the past. One of the changes featured in the Johnston Rules is the shrinking of the field length and end zones. So, I thought it would be timely to revisit the last time the CFL modified its field dimensions.
Once upon a time, the regulation Canadian football field was 110 yards long between the goal lines with two 25 yard end zones. If you watch older CFL games you will realize just how massive the end zones were. The extra deep end zones gave quarterbacks some good real estate to pass for touchdowns.
CFL rule changes, including shortening the end zones from 25 to 20 yards, in 1986. (Regina Leader-Post)
Then in 1983, Vancouver opened BC Place Stadium, the first domed stadium in Canada. The 60,000-seat stadium was a state-of-the-art facility that rivalled Montreal’s Olympic Stadium in terms of capacity and amenities. The trouble was that a full-length Canadian football field wouldn’t fit in the new stadium. So, the BC Lions played on a field that had only 20 yard end zones.
Other CFL stadiums couldn’t quite fit the full 25 yard end zones, either. So, they would clip the corners of the end zone and make do the best they could. Finally in 1986, the Canadian Football League officially adopted 20 yard end zones as the new standard.
A post card showing the 25 yard clipped end zones at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium. (photo: Canadian Football Research Society)
The CFL’s long end zones posed a problem during the league’s brief foray into the United States. Most American football stadiums could not accommodate the longer Canadian field, particularly the 20 yard end zones. So, we ended up with a mishmash of end zones in the CFL’s U.S.-based stadiums. Without question the worst set up was in Memphis where the end zones were only seven yards in length near the sidelines; at most they were less than 15 yards deep in the centre.
The CFL used a heavily modified end zone in Memphis in 1995.
Whenever a sports league makes a rule change – especially if it’s a significant one – there will no doubt ensue a passionate debate amongst the fanbase. That’s probably healthy in the grand scheme of things; after all, apathy is a very difficult thing to overcome. So, if people are talking and you are in the conversation, that means people care. This week was certainly no different. CFL fans have proven they are some of the most passionate sports fans around. I thought I’d end with a selection of fan suggestions for the CFL published in the Toronto Star in 1986.
Rule changes suggested by CFL fans published in the Toronto Star.
Sources: The Toronto Star (13 February 1986) The Regina Leader Post (24 June 1986)
Labour Day weekend is arguably the biggest deal in the Canadian Football League outside the Grey Cup. The end-of-summer holiday features games between the CFL’s fiercest rivalries. Saskatchewan versus Winnipeg. Calgary versus Edmonton. Hamilton versus Toronto. Now back in 1994 one of the CFL’s Labour Day weekend matchups included the Ottawa Rough Riders playing host to the Las Vegas Posse. How’s that for an anomaly?
On Saturday, September 3, 1994, the Rough Riders were looking to snap a four-game losing streak. They were under new ownership and desperately trying to reinvigorate a fickle Ottawa football market. The Posse were the second U.S.-based team in the CFL and were struggling on and off the field by the time they made it to the Nation’s Capital.
Great headline in the Ottawa Citizen
Las Vegas was led by a young rookie quarterback named Anthony Cavillo. He was one of the few bright spots on an inexperienced Posse team coached by Ron Meyer, who himself had no coaching experience in Canadian football.
Calvillo completed an 81 yard touchdown pass to Curtis Mayfield right out of the gate to give Las Vegas an early lead. The two teams went on a scoring shootout, lighting up the scoreboard the rest of the night. A total of over 1300 yards of offence was produced collectively.
Down 44-41 with no time left on the clock, Ottawa’s Terry Baker kicked a field goal to tie the game 44-44. 88 points and 60 minutes of football just wasn’t enough to decide a winner. Overtime awaited.
In those days, the CFL overtime format consisted of two additional five-minute halves. Neither team scored in the first OT half. In the second OT half, each team scored a touchdown. But Meyer opted to go for a two-point conversion with a minute to go in overtime. The gamble failed and Las Vegas was down 51-50. Baker cemented Ottawa’s win with a field goal in the waning seconds of overtime. Final score. Ottawa 54 Las Vegas 50.
Final stats in the Ottawa Citizen
The Posse would cease to exist by the end of the season, and their roster was divvied up amongst the other teams in a dispersal draft. The rest of the American teams would shut down the following year. The Ottawa Rough Riders themselves would fold two years later.
Imagine this. The suits in the NFL are getting ready for their star-studded college draft. Everyone is talking about who’s going to be picked. Who’s going to make it to the big time. Fortune and fame await the lucky group of the chosen few. Then, news breaks that the projected number one pick overall has just signed a record deal with a team from Canada.
It might sound far fetched today, but this is exactly what happened in 1991. To truly appreciate the impact of this event you have to first understand where the CFL was in the early 90s. It was a league in some serious economic trouble. That’s putting it mildly. Attendance was in decline. Teams were losing money. Owners were walking away from their teams. The Montreal franchise had already folded. Plus, Canada was in the midst of a nasty recession not to mention a national unity crisis. These were depressing times.
Nevertheless, in February 1991 the CFL’s flagship franchise, the Toronto Argonauts, were purchased by the trio of businessman Bruce McNall, hockey star Wayne Gretzky, and actor John Candy. McNall et al saw an opportunity in growing Canadian football not just in Toronto but in the United States, as well. With some, let’s say, investment the game could be revitalized in Toronto and a lucrative U.S. market would eat up Canadian football like American apple pie.
That investment was a 21-year-old wide receiver out of Notre Dame college named Raghib “the Rocket” Ismail. Ismail had a stellar college football career and was considered to be the cream of the crop in the 1991 NFL Draft happening in April of that year. The Dallas Cowboys were expected to draft him as the first pick overall.
According to Paul Woods, who authored the book Year of the Rocket, Bruce McNall tasked then Argo General Manager Mike McCarthy to “think big.” McCarthy responded that there’d be nothing bigger than signing the Rocket. Sign the most recognizable college football star in America and lure him to Canada. That would put Toronto and the CFL on the radar. That would be a worthwhile investment indeed.
A publicity stunt? Oates, Bob. “Bruce McNall Tries to Buy a Rocket to Fire Up his Argonauts.” Los Angeles Times, 5 April 1991, p. 375.
NFL executives initially dismissed McNall’s interest in the Rocket as a mere publicity stunt. Surely, he wouldn’t actually open his wallet to make such a move. Or would he?
On April 20, 1991, McNall, who also owned the National Hockey League’s Los Angeles Kings, invited Raghib Ismail to a Stanley Cup playoff game at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles. It was here that the Rocket officially signed the contract with the Toronto Argonauts.
A heads up was given to some Toronto media to allow them time to travel to California, and a press conference was held in Los Angeles to announce that Raghib “the Rocket” Ismail had signed a record $18 million contract with the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts. The deal made Ismail the highest paid professional football player at the time at $4.5 million dollars a year – half a million more than Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers.
Ismail’s salary compared to others (Toronto Star)
The next day, the Rocket was flown to Toronto to be formally introduced as the newest member of the Boatmen. News of the Rocket’s signing sent shockwaves throughout North America. NFL brass were stunned. The signing garnered front page coverage in the New York Times and USA Today. A new era was here. The CFL was about to step into the future more confident than ever. And the Rocket was going to be the face of that future.
The Rocket Signing made front pages news across North America including the Toronto Star.
The Argonauts enjoyed success on and off the field in 1991. They finished in first place in the East Division with a 13-5 record and averaged 37,000 fans per game at the new SkyDome. Road games brought out the crowds, as well. Rocketmania had swept the nation. The Argos defeated Winnipeg 42-3 in the Eastern Final before 50,380 fans before going on to beat the Calgary Stampeders in the 1991 Grey Cup. Ismail himself ended the season with 64 receptions for 1300 yards receiving and nine touchdowns.
The following season, the Argos struggled and went from first to worst, missing the playoffs with a 6-12 record. To make matters worse McNall was experiencing financial and legal problems. The magic was short-lived, it seemed. 1992 was becoming a bit of a nightmare. Ismail left the Argos and the CFL at the end of the season. Just like that, the Rocket era was over.
I asked Paul Woods if it could ever happen today. Could the CFL lure a number one NFL draft pick now? “No chance,” he says. The salary gap is just too wide now between the CFL and the NFL. It really was too wide in 1991. The economics just don’t make sense. The Rocket’s signing was a “one time thing never to be repeated,” he says.
He definitely believes that the Rocket’s signing was one of the “top ten” moments in all of Argonaut history. While he doesn’t quite credit the signing as saving the CFL per se, he does say it got the league thinking bigger and jolted it out of its traditional mom and pop mentality. “It injected optimism and excitement into the Argos and the CFL and gave them tons of attention.”
Yes, the Rocket’s stay in Toronto was short. But the hype surrounding that signing is still something to behold almost 35 years later.
Year of the Rocket by Paul Woods is available through Sutherland House, an independent Toronto-based publishing house.
That was the headline in my hometown’s newspaper, the Hamilton Spectator, after the CFL’s debut in Sacramento, California. I became a CFL fan in the early 1990s. It was a tumultuous time for the Canadian Football League. Some teams across the country were on the verge of collapse. Several others were struggling to stay afloat. Against this backdrop, the CFL opted to add teams in the United States. The benefits of U.S. expansion were two-fold. First, expansion fees could bring in some much-needed cash in the short term. Second, a bigger North American wide football league could open up even greater revenue (i.e., an American TV deal) long term.
An article in the Hamilton Spectator about Sacramento embracing the CFL. (Morris, Jim. “Sacramento falls in love with the CFL.” The Hamilton Spectator, 19 July 1993, p. 16.)
The first American team to join the CFL was the Sacramento Gold Miners in 1993. There was also supposed to be a team in San Antonio, Texas, as well, but it was kiboshed before playing a single down. So, the 1993 CFL season featured nine teams with the addition of the California capital.
The Gold Miners were spearheaded by Fred Anderson, a Sacramento businessman, who had owned the Sacramento Surge of the World League of American Football, a developmental spring league for the National Football League. The WLAF ceased operations in 1992. There was considerable overlap between the Surge and the Gold Miners. The teams’ colours were similar, and many former Surge players and personnel were brought into the Gold Miners’ organization. Kay Stephenson reprised his role as Sacramento’s head coach, having coached the Surge to the 1992 WLAF championship.
Because of U.S. labour laws, the Gold Miners were not required to have any Canadian players on their roster. Instead, they played with an all-American lineup. Some suggested this gave Sacramento a unique advantage over their Canadian counterparts. Yet, the team did struggle as an expansion team while adapting to the Canadian game.
The Gold Miners played their home games at Hornet Field on the campus of Sacramento State university. It was a rather bare bones stadium comprising temporary bleachers and portable washrooms. Nevertheless, the stage was set for a historic debut of Canadian football in northern California.
July 17, 1993
The Gold Miners and Stampeders about to go head to head in Sacramento Voet, Gary. “Today’s Game at a Glance.” The Sacramento Bee, 17 July 1993, p. 21)
The Sacramento Gold Miners opened the 1993 season with a two-game road trip, losing both games in Ottawa and Hamilton. Their first home game was played on Saturday July 17th against the Calgary Stampeders, the defending Grey Cup champions, led by marquee quarterback Doug Flutie.
Marking the field at Hornet Field in Sacramento prior to the CFL’s debut (The Sacramento Bee)
A crowd of 20,082 filed into Hornet Field that night to see a great offensive display of football. Flutie and Sacramento quarterback David Archer lit up the scoreboard in what was truly a wild west shootout. You couldn’t have asked for a more exciting game to introduce Sacramento fans to the CFL. Ultimately, the Stampeders came out on top 38-36. The Gold Miners dropped to 0-3.
Coverage of the historic first CFL game in Sacramento from a Sacramento perspective. (Voet, Gary. “Miners lose a shootout to Calgary.” The Sacramento Bee, 18 July 1993, p. 25.)
Sacramento finished their inaugural season with a 6-12 record, last place in the West Division. They were somewhat better the following year but still missed the playoffs in a competitive West division. Unfortunately, the Gold Miners would leave Sacramento following the 1994 season. After failing to secure a new stadium or upgrades to Hornet Field, Fred Anderson relocated the Gold Miners to the then-still-new Alamodome in San Antonio in 1995 where they became known as the Texans. In 1996, the CFL ended its American expansion experiment and returned to being an all-Canadian league.
I reached out to award-winning journalist Bob Graswich, who was a columnist for the Sacramento Bee during the Gold Miners’ CFL run. His column praising the Canadian game resonated with me because it was exactly how I felt (and still do!) about the CFL when compared to the big bad NFL. Reading that sentiment from an American writer helps validate my position.
Graswich told me the CFL was a “breath of fresh air” for Sacramento. “It was an exciting game, designed for the fans.” An antithesis of the NFL. He speaks very highly of Fred Anderson, saying he was somebody that was difficult not to like. Fred was a Sacramentan through and through, and he reluctantly moved the team only after he ran out of options. Graswich, who visited Anderson before his death, said Fred was truly disappointed that he couldn’t make the CFL work in Sacramento.
A column by Bob Graswich praising the CFL. Sums up my thoughts perfectly. (Graswich, R.E., “Thanks, Fred: You’ve givenus a better game.” The Sacramento Bee, 18 July 1993, p. 23.)
Fred Anderson was no doubt the most committed of the U.S. team owners. Perhaps under different circumstances and in a different time, things could’ve worked out better. Ironically, years later Sacramento State upgraded Hornet Field and renamed the field in Anderson’s honour – a fitting legacy for a man who did so much for football in Sacramento.
Perhaps it was the novelty factor. Perhaps it was the name and logo, which I really liked. Whatever the reason, I purchased a Sacramento Gold Miners t-shirt. It was one of my favourites, and I still have it. Well, my daughter actually took it and still wears it to school. How’s that for vintage CFL USA cool?
It didn’t last long. But football fans in Sacramento enjoyed it while they had it. For a brief period over thirty years ago, Sacramento indeed fell in love with the CFL.
I remember watching this game on television. My family had just returned from a summer road trip to northern Ontario and Ottawa. We made it home just in the nick of time to catch the game on CBC. I really felt like I was watching the beginning of something big. Seeing Americans embrace Canadian football seemed so satisfying to me at the time. It still does, really.
Back home in Calgary, Tom Elder was also watching this game with excitement. Tom has an extensive library of old CFL games on his Calgary Stampeders Classics YouTube channel . You can watch the historic Calgary-Sacramento game below. Please consider contributing to Tom’s project if you can. It takes a considerable amount of time, resources, and effort to help preserve some of these great CFL memories.
