Tag: BC Place Stadium

Advertisements for CFL Football at BC Place Stadium in 1983

My background is in sales and marketing. That’s what I studied at university, and that’s been my career for the last 25+ years. Coincidently, I discovered my interest in marketing around the same time I started following CFL football. That was back in Grade 10. As a marketer who likes history and nostalgia, I like looking back at vintage and retro advertising. So, I thought let’s do a blog post on some old advertisements for the CFL.

To set the tone. The year is 1983, and the new BC Place Stadium has just been built in Vancouver. The 59,000-seat stadium is the first domed stadium in Canada. New beginnings for the B.C. Lions.

Here are some advertisements for the B.C. Lions and CFL football that appeared in Vancouver newspapers throughout the year.

Advertisement for BC Lions season tickets in the Province, 12 June 1983.

The first game at BC Place Stadium was a pre-season match between the Lions and the Calgary Stampeders. The game featured a kick-off concert by The Guess Who.

Advertisement for the BC Lions’ first game at BC Place Stadium, an exhibition game vs. the Calgary Stampeders (Vancouver Sun, 16 June 1983).

The Lions hosted the Saskatchewan Roughriders in their regular season home opener at BC Place. The game was sponsored by Rothman’s and you could win a “magnificent Eskimo carving.” A different era when tobacco advertising was quite common.

Advertisement for the BC Lions’ regular season home opener at BC Place Stadium (Vancouver Sun, 23 July 1983).

A&B Sound, a former electronics retailer, was a corporate sponsor of the B.C. Lions. They ran the promotion below.

A&B promo ad in the Province (30 June 1983).

The two best teams in the CFL in 1983 squared off on September 10th. A Grey Cup preview.

Advertisement for the big game between BC and Toronto (Vancouver Sun, 8 September 1983).

A purchase of a Sony radio or Walkman also got you into the big game between the Lions and Argos.

Promo ad (The Province, 9 September 1983)

The SuperValu grocery chain ran a ticket promotion, as well. Customers could get a coupon for a free Lions ticket when purchasing a $9 ticket.

SuperValu BC Lions ticket promo ad.

The B.C.Lions hosted the Western Final on November 20th versus Winnipeg. Season ticket holders, as expected, had first dibs. The tickets cost between $10 and $19.

Ad for Western Final tickets (The Province, 30 October 1983).

Player’s was another tobacco sponsor at the time. Here’s an ad promoting Grey Cup Week and the first Grey Cup to be played indoors at BC Place Stadium. Remember to heed the health advice given and avoid inhaling when smoking your cigarette.

Grey Cup advertisement in The Province (24 November 1983).

There weren’t any official Grey Cup tickets ads in Vancouver papers leading up to the big game because the game was virtually sold out well in advance. This article talks about the scarcity of Grey Cup tickets and how they were allocated across the CFL.

Article in the Vancouver Sun about the availability and distribution of Grey Cup tickets (29 October 1983).

So, if you didn’t have tickets, yet, your only option was the scalpers and resellers. The classifieds were full of ads like these. You could try John on Monday morning.

The Grey Cup wasn’t the final game played in 1983. On December 3, the CFL and CFLPA staged an all-star game at BC Place Stadium.

Advertisement for the 1983 CFL-CFLPA All-Star Game (Vancouver Sun, 2 December 1983).

Sources:
The Province, 12 June 1983
The Province, 9 September 1983
The Province, 30 October 1983
The Province, 24 November 1983
Vancouver Sun, 16 June 1983
Vancouver Sun, 23 July 1983
Vancouver Sun, 8 September 1983
Vancouver Sun, 29 October 1983
Vancouver Sun, 2 November 1983
Vancouver Sun, 12 November 1983
Vancouver Sun, 23 November 1983
Vancouver Sun, 2 December 1983
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July 22, 2026
CFL Goes With Shorter End Zones

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)
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September 24, 2025

Tag: BC Place Stadium

Advertisements for CFL Football at BC Place Stadium in 1983

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CFL Goes With Shorter End Zones

Fediverse Reactions