Milestone: The 30th League Grey Cup

The League as we know it came into existence in the fall of 1981. You can find a picture from one of our games the  next year above. The inset shows “The Commissioners.” The action portrayed involves Richard Wright receiving a pass, pursued by Patrick Luciani and two employees from a local radio station that had quite recently been involved in a Western Guard plot to take over the island of Dominica. We’ve become a tad choosier in our recruiting standards in the fullness of time.

We played at Tip Top Field in the early days. At the end of the season, Tom and Cathy threw the first League Grey Cup Banquet in the west end of the city. Arrangements for the banquet were complex and involved the transport of Jim MacMillan’s colour television from East York to the banquet venue in West Toronto. What’s possibly more important is that this is the Thirtieth League Grey Cup. That’s right. We’ll have been watching this game together for 30 years by the end of Sunday evening.

The origins of North American Football

The origins of Canadian football are somewhat surprising. You can find out more about them here. The Wikipedia page for Canadian football is also pretty good. Steven Brunt has an interesting article in today’s Globe on the Can-Am issues in Canadian football. There’s also a throwaway quiz in today’s Star.

Resources for this Year’s Grey Cup Game

It starts at 3:00 PM (PT), or 6:00 PM (ET). TSN has pretty good resources for true students of this year’s game here. You can even review this season’s games between Montreal and Saskatchewan here and here. It should be interesting.