The League and the Grey Cup: Full Circle, 1981-2015

It’s Grey Cup week. The boss has asked for some space to blather on about Grey Cup parties of times gone by. Here’s Part One:

This year's Grey Cup is a historic rematch of the 1981 Grey Cup game. It is the first time those two teams have met in 1981. The 1981 Ottawa Rough Riders finished the season in 2nd place in the East Division with a 5–11–0 record. They defeated the Alouettes and Hamiltion (the only Eastern Conference team with a winning record that year) and appeared in the Grey Cup game to face Edmonton. It would be their last Grey Cup appearance in franchise history.

The 1981 season marks another milestone. The League as we know it first began play that year at Tip Top Field, adjacent to Exhibition Stadium, where the Argos played. The Argos had a particularly pathetic season in 1981 finishing out of the playoffs with a 2-14-0 record. Surprisingly, there were still parking problems for rookie Leaguers that year because of the Argo games. (We played at the same time on Sundays.) Others have circulated stories about the trouble the CFL is in everywhere in the country this year. As a guide to how much the CFL has changed during League History, take a look at the Argos’s record that 1981 season:

Week	Date	Opponent	Location	Final Score	Attendance	Record
1	July 2	Roughriders	Exhibition Stadium	L 19–18	33,243	0–1
2	July 10	@ Alouettes	Olympic Stadium	L 23–22	35,281	0–2
3	July 16	Lions	Exhibition Stadium	L 32–29	37,116	0–3
4	July 25	@ Tiger-Cats	Ivor Wynne Stadium	L 57–13	30,022	0–4
5	July 30	Blue Bombers	Exhibition Stadium	L 21–18	36,102	0–5
6	August 7	@ Rough Riders	Lansdowne Park	L 38–11	22,658	0–6
7	August 13	Eskimos	Exhibition Stadium	L 22–12	38,268	0–7
8	August 23	@ Roughriders	Taylor Field	L 38–14	26,100	0–8
9	Bye
10	September 7	@ Stampeders	McMahon Stadium	L 23–5	30,381	0–9
11	September 13	Rough Riders	Exhibition Stadium	L 23–6	30,340	0–10
12	September 19	@ Lions	Empire Stadium	L 45–14	20,196	0–11
13	September 27	Stampeders	Exhibition Stadium	W 29–26	28,634	1–11
14	Bye
15	October 11	@ Blue Bombers	Winnipeg Stadium	L 43–12	22,757	1–12
16	October 17	Alouettes	Exhibition Stadium	W 20–14	31,038	2–12
17	October 24	@ Eskimos	Commonwealth Stadium	L 61–7	46,146	2–13
18	October 31	Tiger-Cats	Exhibition Stadium	L 21–11	30,615	2–14

Interesting, eh? The 2-13 Argos played their last game at Exhibition Stadium on October 31 that year and still attracted more than 30,000 fans to the game. The League still had three weeks to play at that point and had little time to lament the state of the Argos or the CFL. Tom agreed to hold a monster Grey Cup party at the loft. The Awards Committee met to create cheesy trophies to mark individual accomplishments of the first season. The most memorable was the Golden TriPed Award for the Most Injured Player, which was awarded that year to Jim Macmillan, who broke his shoulder trying to sack a quarterback.

The League in action at Tip Top Field, early 1980s

The logistics for the party were difficult. My memory is that spouses and partners of players, who did not reside at the site of the party, joined in the preparations of food. This would be the last time that happened for many years. As well, Jim volunteered his “giant” colour TV for the event. This had to be transported from East York, where Jim was living, to the the loft in the Roncesvalles area. I agreed to transport it in my aging Volvo. The fuel guage had stopped working that year. In the rush to get all the food and TV picked up, I miscalculated how much driving I had done that week and we ran out of gas on the way. Jim was remarkably patient and rummaged in his wallet for a CAA membership card that he had. By the time, we got to the loft, the party was in full swing. The Neems Brothers were late season roster additions that year and had been particularly boisterous critics of Tom and Cathy’s fine Viking 19-inch black and white set on which at least a quarter of the 69th Grey Cup was viewed by the assembled partiers.

Interesting ticket prices for the 1981 game.

It turned out to be a pretty good game and was surprisingly close given the respective records of Ottawa and Edmonton. You can watch a bit of it here. There are recaps here and here. The party proceeded and was a great success. The Northern Lite that was mentioned in the general invitation that Tom sent out this year was not.

1981 Golden Tri-Ped winner	Not a crowd-pleaser at the 1981 party.

As the awards were passed out, a number of half-finished and abandoned bottles of Northern Lite were in evidence around the loft. We live and learn.

I’ll try to get another post together about an earlier, equally memorable party that some of this year’s participants took part in before Sunday.