December 5, 1931: Montreal Wins Its 1st Grey Cup

Warren Stevens

December 5, 1931: The Montreal Football Club, a.k.a. the Winged Wheelers, a football team sponsored by the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, defeats the Regina Roughriders, 22-0 at Percival Molson Memorial Stadium in Montreal, to win the Grey Cup.

This is the 1st time the championship of Canadian football was competed for by a Quebec team. Teasm from Western Canada had reached the Final before, since 1921. But this was the 1st time the Final was played outside the Province of Ontario. And, since the Roughriders were from Saskatchewan, one thing was guaranteed, no matter who won: For the 1st time, the Grey Cup would be won by a team from outside Ontario.

The Canadian Winter had already set in: A snowstorm struck the night before the game. Despite the field being cleared of snow, there were still ice patches on it. It was -9° Celsius at kickoff -- 16° Fahrenheit. Only 5,112 attended.

In a foreshadowing of the 1934 NFL Championship Game, "The Sneaker Game," Regina general manager Fred Wilson organized for pairs of lacrosse shoes to be sent to his team. But the plan backfired, because the shoes somehow found their way into the Montreal dressing room instead, meaning that the visiting team had unintentionally supplied their opponents with excellent footwear for the icy conditions.

Separately, Regina head coach Al Ritchie had employed a Montreal shoemaker to attach leather cleats to the Roughriders' shoes. So it should have been an even game, at least by that standard. But the shoemaker couldn't get to the stadium, due to the weather -- on the campus of McGill University, Molson Stadium is halfway up Mount Royal, and the streets around it are steep -- so the Winged Wheelers, coached by Clary Foran, had a major advantage out of the gate because of their footwear.

It showed. In the 1st quarter, Pete Jotkus picked up a Regina fumble, and returned it into the end zone for a touchdown. Only 7 passes were completed in the game, by both teams combined. One was from Montreal's Warren Stevens to Kenny Grant, for a touchdown in the 3rd quarter. In the 4th quarter, Welch kicked a field goal, and Stevens scored another touchdown. The final score was Montreal 22, Regina 0.

In 1881, 3 sporting clubs merged to form the Montreal AAA: The Montreal Snow Shoe Club, the Montreal Bicycle Club, and the Montreal Lacrosse Club. The AAA founded Montreal's annual Winter Carnival. In 1884, they founded the Montreal Hockey Club. This team won the 1st Stanley Cup, in 1893, and also won it in 1894 and 1902.

Some of the players from the 1902 team founded the Montreal Wanderers, who won the Cup in 1906, 1907, 1908 and 1910, and were charter members of the NHL in the 1917-18 season, but had to fold when the Montreal Arena burned down. The AAA continued to sponsor the Montreal Hockey Club, and won the Allan Cup, for the champions of "senior ice hockey" in Canada, in 1930.

This team's logo was a wheel with wings. A version of it would be adopted by the Montreal Football Club. In 1927, Jack Adams, previously a great hockey player, was named the head coach and general manager of the NHL's Detroit Cougars. Their name was changed to the Detroit Falcons. In 1932, remembering the winged wheel logo of the Montreal AAA, he had a new version of it designed, and had his current team's name changed to match: The Detroit Red Wings. Minor-league baseball already had the Rochester Red Wings in Western New York.

The 1931 Grey Cup was a bit of a last gasp for the Montreal AAA. The Great Depression hit Canada every bit as hard as it hit America, and the club left the professional arena, figuratively and literally, despite the 1931 Grey Cup and the 1930 Allan Cup. The AAA does still exist, and is Canada's oldest active sports club.

For the Roughriders, it was their 4th straight loss in the Grey Cup Final. They would make it 5 the next year. In 1946, without regard to how difficult it was to spell, they switched their locality identifier from their City to their Province, becoming the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

In 1966, they finally won their 1st Grey Cup. They have since won it in 1989, 2007 and 2013. But their 4 titles are still the fewest of any Canadian Football League team, since the Ottawa Redblacks are officially considered a continuation of the defunct Ottawa Rough Riders, and the current version of the Montreal Alouettes are considered a continuation of the previous version.

About whom: The Montreal AAA stopped sponsoring the Winged Wheelers after the 1935 season. The Montreal Alouettes were founded in 1946, and won the Grey Cup in 1949, 1970, 1974 and 1977. A financial meltdown led to them being sold in 1982, and renamed the Montreal Concordes. In 1986, the Alouettes name was restored, but they folded after that season.

In 1995, the Grey Cup was won by the Baltimore Stallions, a U.S.-based team. This embarrassment led the CFL to end their American experiment. However, they offered the Stallions' owners the rights to the Montreal market. The Alouettes were reborn in 1996, and have won the Grey Cup again in 2002, 2009 and 2010. (UPDATE: They won another in 2023.)

After 1931, the Grey Cup would not be played in Montreal again until 1969, at the ill-fated Autostade. It has been played at the 1976 Olympic Stadium in 1977 (the Alouettes winning on their home field, beating Edmonton), 1979 (the Alouettes losing on their home field, to Edmonton), 1981, 1985, 2001 and 2008 (the Alouettes losing on their home field, to Calgary).

Built in 1915, and originally known as McGill Graduates Stadium, Percival Molson Memorial Stadium is still used as the home of McGill University outdoor sports. It was named for an alumnus, a member of the Molson brewing family, who was killed in action in World War I. The Alouettes used it as their home field from 1947 to 1967, and have done so again since 1998, though they use the much larger Olympic Stadium for Playoff games.

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December 5, 1931 was a Saturday. In American football, the NFL had games the next day. Among the college football games played that day were these:

* The University of Tennessee came north, and played a charity game against New York University at Yankee Stadium. A crowd of 40,684 saw the Volunteers beat the Violets, 13-0.

* Navy beat the University of Pennsylvania, 6-0 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Army had the week off. It must have helped, because, the following week, at Yankee Stadium, Army beat Navy, 17-7.

* In an all-Pittsburgh matchup, Duquesne and Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon) played to a 0-0 tie at the University of Pittsburgh's Pitt Stadium.

* And the University of Southern California beat the University of Washington, 44-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This was decades before the current Playoff system went into effect, but, the week before, USC beat Notre Dame, 16-14 in South Bend. The week after this, Georgia came into the Coliseum, and USC beat them, 60-0. If there was any doubt that USC were the best team in the country, it ended in the Rose Bowl, where they beat Tulane, 21-12. (The New Orleans school was a major power at the time.)

Baseball was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games played in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Falcons, 4-0 at the Montreal Forum. The Falcons became the Red Wings the next season. And the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Maroons, 4-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

And in English soccer, North London team Arsenal went to Yorkshire, and beat Sheffield Wednesday, 3-1 at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. Arsenal won the Football League title that season, while Wednesday won the two before that.

December 4, 1909: The 1st Grey Cup

December 4, 1909: The 1st Grey Cup football game is held, for the Canadian Dominion Football Championship.

As with hockey's Stanley Cup, 16 years earlier, the trophy is donated by the man who was then the Governor-General of Canada, the British monarch's representative in the country. This was Albert Grey, the 4th Earl Grey (1851-1917, held the office 1904-1911).

His grandfather, Charles, the 2nd Earl Grey, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1830 to 1834, and was the namesake of Earl Grey tea, which had been presented to him as a diplomatic gift from China.

The game is held at Rosedale Field, about 3 miles north of downtown Toronto. Attendance was a full house, 3,807. It was between the University of Toronto Varsity Blues, Champions of the Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union (IRFU), and the Toronto Parkdale Canoe Club, Champions of the Ontario Rugby Football Union. Essentially, they were, respectively, the best college and professional rugby teams in the country. (Canadian football came out of rugby, and the Canadian Football League, the CFL, would become the successor to the Canada Rugby Union, the CRU.)

At the time, though, much like in American football, the professional game was semi-pro at best. Most of the men had real jobs they had to work, and didn't really have time to dedicate to improving their game through organized practices. The Blues, on the other hand, were considerably better organized and, under head coach Harry Griffith, better prepared. It was no contest: UT won, 26-6.

The 1909 Varsity Blues. The trophy at the right

is the original version of the Grey Cup.

The Varsity Blues would repeat in 1910, beating the Hamilton Tigers at the Amateur Athletic Association Grounds in Hamilton, Ontario; and in 1911, beating the Toronto Argonauts at UT's new on-campus home, Varsity Stadium, at which the Argos had begun to "groundshare," helping to making it the most successful location in the history of Canadian football. These games drew 12,000 and 13,687 fans, respectively, showing that the sport was already growing.

The Varsity Blues would win a 4th Grey Cup in 1920, before the professional teams began to catch up. Varsity Stadium went on to host 30 Grey Cups, sometimes as a neutral site, though the Argos would end up winning it there 9 times.

By the early 1930s, things had consolidated, and only professional teams were playing for the Grey Cup. Through the 2022 season, here are the totals of the current teams in the CFL: The Toronto Argonauts 18, the Edmonton Elks (formerly the Edmonton Eskimos) 14, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 12, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 8, the Calgary Stampeders 8, the Montreal Alouettes 7, the Vancouver-based BC Lions 6, the Regina-based Saskatchewan Roughriders (1 word) 4, and the Ottawa Redblacks (formerly the Senators and the Rough Riders, 2 words) 1.

And here are the totals won by the various cities, including teams that no longer compete for the Cup (and, in some cases, no longer even exist): Toronto 25, Hamilton 15, Edmonton 14, Winnipeg 12, Ottawa 10, Montreal 9, Calgary 8, Vancouver 6, Regina 4, Kingston (Ontario) 3, Sarnia 2, Baltimore 1.

(Yes, you read that right: Baltimore 1. I'll get to this.)

The Montreal Amateur Athletic Association won it in 1931, making them the 1st team from outside Ontario to win it. The Blue Bombers (then known simply as the 'Pegs, for Winnipeg) won it in 1935, making them the 1st team from west of Ontario to win it. The Stampeders won it in 1948, making them the 1st team from Western Canada to win it.

In 1993, the CFL was in trouble, and so it tried to expanded to the U.S., adding teams in Sacramento, Las Vegas, Shreveport, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio, and Baltimore. The Baltimore Stallions, wearing blue like the old Colts, taking on a horse name like the Colts, and playing in Memorial Stadium like the Colts, reached the Final in 1994, but lost to BC. In 1995, the Stallions won it, beating the Stampeders. In other words, since 1993, no Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup, but an American team has won the Grey Cup

With the Baltimore Ravens arriving in 1996, the Stallions moved to Montreal, becoming the 2nd edition of the Alouettes. The CFL ended its American experiment.

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December 4, 1909 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. Professional basketball barely existed. There were 2 college football games on this day, but only 1 of the 4 teams involved is now thought of as being in a "Power Five" Conference. Colorado School of Mines beat St. Vincent's College, 16-0 at Fiesta Park in Los Angeles. Colorado Mines now playin NCAA Division II. St. Vincent's went through several name changes before becoming Loyola Marymount University in 1973. But they dropped football after the 1951 season.

And the University of Denver beat Washington State College, 11-6 at Recreation Park in Spokane, Washington. "Wazzu" was renamed Washington State University in 1959. Denver scrapped its football program after the 1961 season.

December 4, 1909 is also recognized as the founding date of the greatest of all hockey franchises, the Montreal Canadiens, by Canadian silver magnate John Ambrose O'Brien, who had also owned the Renfrew Creamery Kings, west of Ottawa. The Canadiens then co-founded the National Hockey Association, and were co-founders of the National Hockey League in 1917, on their way to 24 Stanley Cups. O'Brien had played hockey, but not football, at the University of Toronto, winners of the 1st 3 Grey Cups.

December 2, 1962: Bud Grant's Blue Bombers Win the Fog Bowl

December 2, 1962: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers win the Grey Cup, the Championship of the Canadian Football League. It is their 4th title in the last 5 years, concluding what passes for a dynasty in the CFL.

Harry Peter Grant Jr. was born on May 20, 1927, the day Charles Lindbergh took off from Long Island, in Superior, Wisconsin, across the Saint Louis River from Duluth, Minnesota, where the river flows into Lake Superior. His mother called him "Buddy Boy," and this was shortened to "Bud."

After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, playing for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center football team coached by Paul Brown. He starred in baseball, football and basketball at the University of Minnesota, and was a member of the Minneapolis Lakers' 1950 NBA Champions. He left basketball for football, and played 2 seasons for the Philadelphia Eagles, and 4 for the Blue Bombers. In 1957, he retired as a player to accept their post as head coach.

In 1958, just his 2nd season with them, he led them to a 13-3 record, winning the Western Interprovincial Football Union title. In the Grey Cup, held at the Empire Stadium in Vancouver, the Blue Bombers beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 35-28, winning the Bombers their 1st title in 17 years.

The Ticats led 14-0 in the 1st quarter, before the Bombers closed to within 14-13. Instead of downing the ball before halftime, Hamilton coach Jim Trimble elected to punt the ball away on the last play. The punt was blocked, and recovered in the end zone by Norm Rauhaus to give the Bombers a 20-14 halftime lead. Angelo Mosca of the Ticats, one of the greatest linemen in CFL history, admitted: "We should have won the 1958 Grey Cup, but there was a bad coaching error before halftime."

In 1959, in a 2-legged West Final, they beat the Edmonton Eskimos, 19-11 in Edmonton and 16-8 at Winnipeg Stadium. That set up the Grey Cup, on neutral ground at the brand-new Canadian National Exhibition Stadium, home of the Toronto Argonauts, and eventually to be home of baseball's Toronto Blue Jays. The Bombers beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, 21-7. The key play came early in the 4th quarter: Roger Savoie hit Hamilton running back Gerry McDougall, causing him to fumble. Bud Tinsley recovered. A 41-yard pass from Ken Ploen to Farrell Funston set up a 2-yard touchdown run by Charlie Shepard, who was named the game's Most Valuable Player.

Four months' later, Bombers' running back Gerry James played on the right wing for the Toronto Maple Leafs as they lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Montreal Canadiens. He remains the only man to play in the Grey Cup and the Stanley Cup Finals in the same season, and is a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

The Bombers didn't make it back in 1960, and the Ottawa Rough Riders beat the Edmonton Eskimos, 16-6. In 1961, Grant was asked by Max Winter, founding owner of the NFL's expansion Minnesota Vikings, to be the team's 1st head coach. He turned the offer down, and Winter hired recently retired star quarterback Norm Van Brocklin.

Grant again coached Winnipeg to a 13-3 season, winning the newly-renamed Western Football Conference. Again playing Hamilton at Exhibition Stadium, the Grey Cup went to overtime for the 1st time, and Ploen ran the winning touchdown in himself, giving the Blue Bombers a 21-14 win.

Ken Ploen

They got back in 1962, again facing the Tiger-Cats at Exhibition Stadium. But when the teams took the field on December 1, both hoping to win on the day, it turned out that no one would. By the 2nd quarter, a thick fog started to roll in over the field, a combination of cold, moist, humid air from Lake Ontario. Much as would happen in a 1988 NFL Playoff game on Chicago's Lake Michigan, which would also be nicknamed "The Fog Bowl," in this game, the fog was thick enough that fans could not see the action on the field, receivers lost sight of the ball after it left the quarterbacks' hand, and punt returners could not find punts until they hit the ground.

The fog became worse as the afternoon wore on, and, with 9 minutes and 29 seconds left in the 4th quarter, the game was suspended, with Winnipeg leading, 28–27. The game was resumed the following afternoon, but there was no further scoring, thus securing the Bomber win.

The 1962 Grey Cup was the first CFL contest to be broadcast by an American TV network, when ABC Wide World of Sports carried it on tape delay at 4:00 PM Eastern Time, while Canadians got to see it on CBC starting at 12:30 Eastern. Although ABC aired WWOS on both Saturdays and Sundays, they, unlike CBC, opted not to show the resumed game the next day.

The Blue Bombers had now won 4 titles in 5 seasons, as yet an unmatched run of success. Teams had won 3 straight Grey Cups, but not 4 in so few years. Then the quasi-dynasty went into a tailspin, going 7-9 in 1963. Grant was given the general manager's duties, on top of the head coaching duties, for 1964, and the team finished 1-14-1. He got them to a rebound season in 1965, going 11-5 and reaching the Grey Cup again, but losing to the Tiger-Cats, 22-16 in Toronto. He got them back to the Playoffs in 1966, but lost the West Final.

In 1967, Winter and his general manager, Jim Finks, fired Van Brocklin, and again made an overture to Grant. This time, he accepted, and led the Vikings to the 1969 NFL Championship, and the 1973, 1974 and 1976 NFC Championships. But they lost all 4 Super Bowls.

Still, to this day, he and Marv Levy are the only coaches to lead teams into both a Grey Cup and a Super Bowl. Grant, Levy and Steve Owen are the only coaches to win Coach of the Year in both the CFL and the NFL. And he and Levy are the only coaches to be in both the Pro Football and the Canadian Football Halls of Fame. The only player in both is Warren Moon.

Both the Blue Bombers and the Vikings have elected Grant to their team halls of fame. The Blue Bombers have dedicated a statue to him outside their new Princess Auto Stadium.

For the 1963 season, the CFL adopted an official policy for postponements of postseason games: Play may be stopped for up to 3 hours, and then resume. After 3 hours of stoppage, play is terminated at least for the day. A Playoff or Grey Cup game must then be resumed the following day, at the point where it left off. Through the 2022 season, this policy has never had to be invoked.

Since Grant left the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, they took until 1984 to win the Grey Cup again, a 22-year gap. They have since won in 1988, 1990, 2019 (a 29-year gap) and 2021.

UPDATE: Bud Grant died on March 11, 2023, at the age of 95, in Bloomington, Minnesota, the suburb of Minneapolis where Metropolitan Stadium, home of the NFL's Vikings and baseball's Twins from 1961 to 1981, stood.

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December 2, 1962 was a Sunday. These games were played in the NFL:

* The New York Giants beat the Chicago Bears, 26-24 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Washington Redskins, 37-14 at District of Columbia Stadium (later renamed Robert F. Kennedy Stadium) in Washington.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 19-7 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Baltimore Colts, 21-14 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Green Bay Packers beat the Los Angeles Rams, 41-10 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* The San Francisco 49ers beat the Minnesota Vikings, 35-12 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* And the Dallas Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns, 45-21 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

There were 3 games in the AFL:

* The Buffalo Bills beat the Dallas Texans, 23-14 at War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo.

* The Houston Oilers beat the Denver Broncos, 34-17 at Jeppesen Stadium (later Robertson Stadium) in Houston.

* And the San Diego Chargers beat the Oakland Raiders, 31-21 at Balboa Stadium in San Diego.

Baseball was out of season. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 128-127 in overtime at the Cincinnati Gardens. And the St. Louis Hawks beat the San Francisco Warriors, 122-116 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City, California. Cliff Hagan scored 43 points for the Hawks. For the Warriors' Wilt Chamberlain, it was just another day at the office: He scored 59 points and grabbed 24 rebounds.

And the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Boston Bruins, 4-2 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium.

November 28, 1964: A Grey Cup for Vancouver

Joe Kapp

November 28, 1964: The Grey Cup, the championship of the Canadian Football League, is held at the Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. It is a rematch of the previous season's final, when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats beat the BC Lions, 21-10 at Empire Stadium in Vancouver.

That was the 1st time a team from the Province of British Columbia had gotten that far, and the Lions -- their geographic identifier always simply "BC," not "Vancouver," nor "British Columbia," nor even "B.C." -- were determined to avenge the defeat. Coached by Dave Skrien, and led by quarterback Joe Kapp, they had finished the season 11-2-3.

And everything went the Lions' way. Running back Bob Swift had scored a touchdown, but was subsequently injured. Bill Munsey took his place as if nothing had happened. In the 3rd quarter, he scored a touchdown on offense on a handoff from Kapp, running 18 yards; and another on defense, when he picked up a fumble and ran it in 71 yards.

The Lions even scored a touchdown on a bad field goal attempt: Holding Pete Ohler, couldn't get the snap down, had to scramble, and passed to Jim Carphin. Another touchdown was scored by one of the top black players in the CFL, Willie "Will o' the Wisp" Fleming. The Lions won the game, 34-24.

Kapp had quarterbacked the University of California into the 1959 Rose Bowl, but lost. In the 1969 season, he led the Minnesota Vikings into Super Bowl IV, but lost. He remains the only man ever to quarterback teams into the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl, and the Grey Cup.

The Lions have since won the Grey Cup again in 1985, 1994, 2000, 2006 and 2011. They are easily Vancouver's most successful team: The NHL's Canucks are 0-3 in the Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA's Grizzlies lasted just 6 seasons before moving, and they have only been at the Class A level in minor-league baseball since 2000, having previously won 3 Pennants at the Class AAA level. Even if you count soccer, the NASL's version of the Whitecaps won just 1 title, in 1979; and MLS' version has only gotten as far as the Quarterfinals.

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November 28, 1964 was a Saturday. This was the end of rivalry week in American college football. In the biggest game of the day, Number 1 Notre Dame were upset by the University of Southern California (USC), 20-17 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. I have a separate entry for that event.

These other notable college football games were played:

* Rivalry: Army beat Navy, 11-8 at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.

* Rivalry: Boston College beat Holy Cross, 10-8 at Alumni Stadium outside Boston in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

* Rivalry: Georgia beat Georgia Tech, 7-0 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* Rivalry: Florida beat Miami, 12-10 at Florida Field (now Ben Hill Griffin Stadium) in Gainesville, Florida.

* Rivalry: Vanderbilt beat Tennessee, 7-0 at Dudley Field (now FirstBank Stadium) in Nashville.

* Rivalry: Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State, 21-16 at Lewis Field (now Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

* Rivalry: Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Southern Methodist University (SMU), 17-6 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* Rivalry: Arizona beat Arizona State, 30-6 at Arizona Stadium in Tucson.

Two days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day:

* Rivalry: Number 2 Alabama beat Auburn, 21-14 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. 'Bama won the Southeastern Conference title. 

* Rivalry: Number 5 Texas beat Texas A&M, 26-7 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas.

* Idle: Number 3 Arkansas, who had beaten Texas, and won the Southwest Conference title; Number 6 Michigan, who had won the Big Ten Conference title; Number 7 Nebraska, who, despite losing the week before to arch-rival Oklahoma, had won the Big Eight Conference title; Number 8 Louisiana State University (LSU); Number 9 Oregon State, who had won the title in the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU), the league that became the Pacific-Eight (or Pac-8) the next year; Number 10 Ohio State, which had blown the Big 10 title by losing their finale to Michigan; and New Jersey teams Rutgers and Princeton.

And so, at a time when the National Championship was awarded by the Associated Press' sportswriters' poll after the regular season, with Notre Dame's loss, Alabama, coached by Bear Bryant and quarterbacked by Joe Namath, rose to Number 1.

But Texas beat Alabama in the Orange Bowl, and Arkansas beat Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl, to earn a share of the National Championship with Alabama. Michigan beat Oregon State in the Rose Bowl, and LSU beat Syracuse in the Sugar Bowl.

Baseball was out of season. Both the NFL and the AFL played the next day, plus games 2 days earlier, on Thanksgiving. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the St. Louis Hawks, 106-91 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Cincinnati Royals, 129-98 at the Boston Garden.

* The Philadelphia76ers beat the Detroit Pistons, 101-93 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.

* And the San Francisco Warriors beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, 109-106 at the Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Just another day at the office for Wilt Chamberlain: 40 points and 30 rebounds.

There were 2 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Manchester United beat Arsenal, 3-2 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London. 

November 27, 1954: The 1st Grey Cup Under the CFL Banner

Jackie Parker

November 27, 1954: The first Canadian Football League season comes to a conclusion, with the Championship of Canadian football, the Grey Cup, being played, on neutral ground at Varsity Stadium in Toronto – in effect, Canada’s national stadium at the time. (From 1909 to 1953, the governing body was the Canadian Rugby Union.) It was broadcast nationwide over CBC, the 1st time the Grey Cup was on television.

The Montreal Alouettes were the Champions of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union. The Edmonton Eskimos were the Champions of the Western Interprovincial Football Union. The game was played on a very muddy field, which contributed to some sloppy play.

In the 1st quarter, the Eskimos, or "Esks" for short, opened the scoring on a 4-yard touchdown pass from Rollie Miles to Earl Lindley. At the time, the CFL awarded 5 points for a touchdown, not 6. The Alouettes, or "Als," tied the game when Sam Etcheverry threw a 90-yard touchdown pass to Red O'Quinn.

The Eskimos retook the lead on a 1-yard run by Bernie Faloney, but, this time, Bob Dean missed the point-after-touchdown. Early in the 2nd quarter, he kicked a field goal to make it 16-7 Edmonton. But Montreal took an 18-14 halftime lead on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Etcheverry to O'Quinn and an 8-yard touchdown run by Chuck Hunsinger. 

The only score of the 3rd quarter came when Ray Poole missed a 17-yard field goal attempt, and the Eskimos did not return it. Under the rules of Canadian football, this is called a "single" or a "rouge," and is worth 1 point. Therefore, the Als ended the 3rd quarter up 19-14. And in the 4th quarter, Etcheverry threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Joey Pal. The Als led, 25-14.

The Eskimos' next drive ended with a Glenn Lippman reverse-field dash, 14 yards for a touchdown. With 1st & 10 on the Eskimos' 10-yard line and 3 minutes remaining, Etcheverry handed the ball off to Hunsinger, who was almost immediately corralled about 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage. In the game's most famous and controversial play, he apparently fumbled, and Jackie Parker recovered the ball on the 20-yard line, and ran 90 yards for the touchdown, with Etcheverry in full but futile pursuit. With Dean's conversion, the Eskimos led, 26-25.

Many Montreal fans believed that the "fumble" was actually a forward pass attempt, to an ineligible receiver, in which case it would not have been a touchdown for Edmonton, as the pass would have been incomplete.

There were still 3 minutes left in the game, and Etcheverry moved his team downfield. He passed to O'Quinn at the Eskimos 35-yard line, but he was hit, and the result was another fumble recovered by the Eskimos. The 26-25 lead held, and the Eskimos had won the Grey Cup for the 1st time.

It was the 1st of 3 straight titles for them. They went on to win the Grey Cup in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1987, 1993, 2003, 2005 and 2015. In 2021, due to racial concerns, the name "Eskimos" was dropped, and the team changed its name to the Edmonton Elks, allowing them to keep the initials and their "EE" logo.

Parker, a Tennessee native, was later voted the Number 3 player in CFL history. He lived until 2006. Etcheverry, from New Mexico, was voted 26th, and coached the Alouettes to the Grey Cup in 1970. He lived until 2009.

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November 27, 1954 was a Saturday. Actress Patricia McPherson, best known as KITT's mechanic Bonnie Barstow on Knight Rider, was born.

Baseball was out of season. Among the college football games played that day were these:

* Number 1 Ohio State had completed their regular season the week before, defeating then-Number 12 Michigan. This won them the Big Ten Conference title, and sent them to the Rose Bowl.

* Number 2 University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) had completed their season the week before, defeating their intracity rivals, the University of Southern California (USC). This won UCLA the Pacific Coast Conference title. However, the PCC's no-repeat rule meant that they could not go to the Rose Bowl for the 2nd straight season, preventing a de facto National Championship game.

* Rivalry: Number 3 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma A&M, 14-0 at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. This was during Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak, still a college football record. They won the Big Seven Conference, which had a no-repeat rule, so 2nd-place Nebraska were invited to the Orange Bowl instead. In 1958, when A&M was renamed Oklahoma State, they joined the league, making it the Big Eight.

* Rivalry: Number 4 Notre Dame beat Number 17 University of Southern California, 23-17 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame did not accept bowl bids at the time, so an early-season loss to Purdue cost them the National Championship. Since USC finished 2nd to UCLA in the PCC, they got the PCC's Rose Bowl berth. Ohio State beat them, to win the National Championship.

* Rivalry: Number 6 Navy beat Number 5 Army, 27-20 at Municipal Stadium (later John F. Kennedy Stadium) in Philadelphia. The Air Force Academy fielded its 1st varsity football team the next season. Navy were invited to the Sugar Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 7 University of Mississippi beat Mississippi State University, 14-0 at Hemingway Stadium (now Vaught-Hemingway Stadium) in Oxford, Mississippi. This clinched the Southeastern Conference title for "Ole Miss," and earned them the accompanying berth in the Sugar Bowl, where they lost to Navy.

* Rivalry: Number 8 Wisconsin beat Number 20 Minnesota, 27-0 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.

* Number 9 Baylor were upset by Rice, 20-14 at Baylor Stadium in Waco, Texas.

* Two days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, Number 10 Maryland beat Missouri, 74-13 at Byrd Stadium (now SECU Stadium) in the Washington suburb of College Park, Maryland.

* Rivalry: Number 11 University of Miami beat Florida, 14-0 at Florida Field (now Ben Hill Griffin Stadium) in Gainesville, Florida.

* Rivalry: Number 12 West Virginia beat Virginia, 14-10 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* Number 13 Arkansas beat the University of Houston, 19-0 at Rice Stadium in Houston. This clinched the Southwest Conference title for Arkansas, and earned them the accompanying Cotton Bowl berth.

* Rivalry: Number 20 Duke beat North Carolina, 47-12 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This clinched the Atlantic Coast Conference title for Duke -- a tie with Wake Forest cost Maryland the title -- and they were invited to the Orange Bowl, where they beat Nebraska.

* Rivalry: Georgia Tech beat Georgia, 7-3 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. Tech were invited to the Cotton Bowl, where they beat Arkansas.

* Rivalry: Boston College beat Holy Cross, 31-13 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* Rivalry: Vanderbilt beat Tennessee, 26-0 at Dudley Field in Nashville.

* Rivalry: Louisiana State University (LSU) beat Tulane, 14-13 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Rivalry: Southern Methodist University (SMU) beat Texas Christian University (TCU), 21-6 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

* While these 2 Catholic schools in the Northeast weren't exactly rivals, their game was the biggest college football game in New York City that Thanksgiving Weekend: Philadelphia-based Villanova beat Fordham, 41-0 at the Polo Grounds. Both teams had a bad season: This was 'Nova's only win, and Fordham had only beaten Rutgers. Just under 10,000 fans attended.

* And both New Jersey teams, Rutgers and Princeton, finished their seasons the week before.

There were 3 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Syracuse Nationals 80-74 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Rochester Royals beat the Boston Celtics, 107-101 at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.

* And the Fort Wayne Pistons beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 97-81 at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum. The Boston Bruins and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Arsenal welcomed the defending Football League Champions, Birmingham-area team Wolverhampton Wanderers, to the Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its North London neighborhood, and played "Wolves" to a 1-1 draw.

November 27, 1948: The 1st Western Team to Win the Grey Cup

November 27, 1948: For the 1st time, a team from Western Canada wins the Grey Cup, the championship of professional football in the country.

The Western Interprovincial Football Union (WIFU) featured several teams in Calgary, including the Bronks -- not "Broncos" -- but the onset of World War II ended that. In 1945, the Calgary Stampeders were founded named for the Calgary Stampede, the world's largest annual rodeo. They played their home games at Mewata Stadium, which opened in 1906, and remained there until the opening of McMahon Stadium in 1960. Mewata Stadium was demolished in 1999.

Among the Stampeders' players, under head coach Les Lear, were 2 nonwhite men, and this was rare in pro football at any level at this point. Woody Strode had starred as an end at UCLA, and with another former UCLA player, Kenny Washington, re-integrated the NFL with the 1946 Los Angeles Rams, before going north, and later becoming a renowned actor. And Norman Kwong, known as the China Clipper, was a star running back despite being only 5-foot-7. He would eventually play on 4 Grey Cup winners, and be elected to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame -- and to public office, eventually becoming the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Alberta.

The "Stamps" marched through the 1948 regular season undefeated, though it should be noted that they had only 2 opponents: The Regina Roughriders, who became the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1950; and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. They played each team 3 times at home, and 3 times away, and went 12-0. On 3 occasions, the Riders held them to wins of just 1 point. But it was enough to win the WIFU's berth in the Grey Cup, against the Champions of the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union.

That would be the Ottawa Rough Riders -- spelling the mascot name as two words, as opposed to Regina's one. They had only 3 opponents: The Montreal Alouettes, the Hamilton Wildcats and the Toronto Argonauts. They went 10-2, both losses dealt by Montreal.

The Final was held on neutral ground, at Varsity Stadium on the campus of the University of Toronto. There had been Grey Cup winners from Winnipeg, but no further west than that. Infamously, the Regina Roughriders lost the Final 5 straight years, from 1928 to 1932. This was the 1st time a team west of Regina had ever gotten there.

And the visiting Calgarians played up their Western image. Between the ranches, the oil, and a conservatism tinged with libertarianism, Alberta is "Canada's Texas," and in November 1948, they reveled in that status, staging pancake breakfasts on the steps of City Hall, riding horses into the lobby of the prestigious Royal York Hotel downtown, and starting parades, dances and parties everywhere.

In other words, they would have ended up looking pretty silly had their team lost. The only score in the 1st quarter was a single by Ottawa. A single is awarded when the ball is kicked into the end zone by any legal means -- other than an extra-point conversion, successful or not, or not) or a successful field goal -- and the receiving team does not return or kick the ball out of its end zone. The Rough Riders led, 1-0.

But the Stampeders stopped 3 1st-half drives inside the 25-yard line, twice refusing to fall for fake punts. After regaining possession following the 2nd fake, the Stamps ran a "sleeper play": Norm Hill ran over to the far sidelines and flopped on the field, essentially hiding. Everybody in the stadium, except the Rough Riders on the field, saw this coming. Keith Spaith passed to Hill, who slipped before he had possession of the ball, but he fell on his back, and the ball dropped into his hands. Since he hadn't been touched, he was permitted to get up and run, and scored what is sometimes called the "sit-down touchdown." The Stampeders led, 6-1. (The CFL banned the sleeper play in 1961.)

Bob Paffrath scored a touchdown for the Riders in the 3rd quarter, putting them up, 7-6. But int he 4th quarter, Strode recovered a fumble from Pete Karpuk, and took it to the Ottawa 11-yard line. Pete Thodos scored a touchdown shortly thereafter, and the Stampeders won the game, 12-7. Canadian football had its 1st Western-based Champions.

Jim Coleman, who went on to become Canada's 1st nationally-syndicated print sports columnist, wrote this in the next day's Globe and Mail:

The football game for the Grey Cup was contested officially in the stadium and was continued unofficially in the hotel lobby. At 5:01 p.m. the goalposts were borne triumphantly through the front doors and were erected against the railings of the mezzanine. At 5:02 p.m. two platoons of bellboys circumspectly removed the potted palms, flower vases and anything that weighed less than three thousand pounds. The gaudily caparisoned Calgary supporters were boisterous and noisy but well-behaved and courteously declined to ride their horses into the elevators. Any minor untoward incidents were occasioned by youthful local yahoos who suffered from the delusion that the consumption of two pints of ale and the acquisition of a pseudo-western twang entitled them to ride the range astride any convenient chesterfield.

The Stamps went 13-1 in 1949, their 1 loss being 9-6 to Saskatchewan. They reached the Grey Cup Final again, this time losing to the Montreal Alouettes. It would take until 1971 for them to win another. They have since won in 1992, 1998, 2001, 2008, 2014 and 2018.

From further west than Calgary, the Edmonton Eskimos (now the Edmonton Elks) won their 1st Grey Cup in 1954. The BC Lions, the "BC" standing for British Columbia, with their base in Vancouver, won their 1st in 1964. Of the 9 teams that would make up the classic CFL -- from east to west, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver -- the Saskatchewan Roughriders were the last to win their 1st, in 1966.

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November 27, 1948 was a Saturday. It was a college football gameday in America, with some major rivalries being played:

* Number 1 Michigan had ended its season the week before, beating arch-rival Ohio State, who had been ranked Number 18. Michigan thus won the Big Nine Conference title. (The Big Ten had lost the University of Chicago, and would soon regain their name by admitting Michigan State.) Since the league's rules prevented them from going to back-to-back bowls, and from going to any other bowl, their season was over, and they went on to be proclaimed the National Champions.

* Number 5 University of California and Number 7 Northwestern were also idle. Cal won the Pacific Coast Conference title, and Northwestern finished 2nd in the Big Nine, so they played each other in the 1949 Rose Bowl. Northwestern won, and it remains their only appearance in the game except for a loss to USC in 1995.

* Two days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, the rivalries included a 23-14 upset by Cornell of Number 19 Pennsylvania at Franklin Field in Philadelphia; Missouri beating Kansas, 21-7 at what became Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri; and Texas A&M holding Texas to a 14-14 tie at Texas' Memorial Stadium in Austin.

* The day before, Kentucky beat the University of Miami, 25-5 at Burdine Stadium (later renamed the Orange Bowl) in Miami; and Brigham Young University (BYU) beat Arizona State, 27-25 at Goodwin Stadium in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe, Arizona.

* Number 2 Notre Dame beat the University of Washington, 46-0 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Rivalry: Number 3 Army were held to a 21-21 tie by Navy at Municipal Stadium (later John F. Kennedy Stadium) in Philadelphia.

* Number 4 North Carolina beat Virginia, 34-12 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.

* Rivalry: Number 6 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State, 19-15 at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Oklahoma went on to beat North Carolina in the Sugar Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 8 Southern Methodist University (SMU) were held to a tie by Texas Christian University (TCU), 7-7 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. In spite of this, SMU still won the Southwest Conference title, and running back Doak Walker was awarded the Heisman Trophy.

* Number 9 Clemson beat Auburn, 7-6 at Ladd Memorial Stadium in Mobile, Alabama.

* Number 10 Oregon were idle, and went on to beat SMU in the Cotton Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 12 Georgia beat Georgia Tech, 21-13 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. Georgia went on to lose to Texas in the Orange Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 14 Tulane beat Louisiana State University (LSU), 46-0 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Rivalry: Number 15 Vanderbilt beat Tennessee, 28-6 at Dudley Field (now FirstBank Stadium) in Nashville.

* Rivalry: Number 16 Mississippi beat Mississippi State, 34-7 at Hemingway Stadium (now Vaught-Hemingway Stadium) in Oxford, Mississippi.

* Rivalry: Fordham beat New York University (NYU), 26-0 before 26,000 at the Polo Grounds.

* Rivalry: Boston College beat Holy Cross, 21-20 before 46,000 at Braves Field in Boston.

* Rivalry: West Virginia beat Maryland, 16-14 at the old Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia.

* New Jersey's teams, Rutgers and Princeton, had each ended its season the week before.

* In rivalry games played the following week, Alabama beat Auburn 55-0 at Legion Field in Birmingham; and Notre Dame were held to a 14-14 tie by the University of Southern California (USC) at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Baseball was out of season. There were 5 games played in the Basketball Association of America, the league that became the NBA the following season:

* The New York Knicks beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 80-70 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Providence Steam Rollers, 91-71 at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

* The Washington Capitols beat the Indianapolis Jets at the Uline Arena (now the Washington Coliseum) in Washington.

* The Rochester Royals beat the Chicago Stags, 105-103 in double overtime at the Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester, New York.

* And the Minneapolis Lakers beat the St. Louis Bombers, 87-71 at the St. Louis Arena.

The NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-0 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-0 at the Montreal Forum.

* And the Chicago Black Hawks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

And in English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team I would one day support, traveled to Fratton Park in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on the South Coast, and lost to Portsmouth, 4-1. Arsenal were the defending Champions of the Football League, but "Pompey" won the next 2 titles, still their only 2.

November 25, 2001: Don't Talk to Jim Mora About Playoffs

November 25, 2001: The Indianapolis Colts lose to the San Francisco 49ers, 40-21 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. It's the team's 3rd straight loss, and they fall 4-6.

The Colts' coach, Jim Mora is rightly upset. He was 66 years old, a football lifer, from the Los Angeles area. He'd been the head coach at Occidental College in L.A., and served on Dick Vermeil's staff at UCLA and Don James' staff at Washington. He coached the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars to all 3 USFL Championship Games, winning 2 of them. He coached the New Orleans Saints for 11 seasons, including the franchise's 1st 4 Playoff berths. He was now in his 4th season as head man in Indianapolis, having made the Playoffs the preceding 2 years.

He had seen it all. He now acted like he'd seen enough, and launched into one of the press conference tirades he was known for occasionally giving:

Well, I'll start off by saying this: Do not blame that game on the defense, okay? I don't care who you play, whether it's a high school team, a junior college team, a college team, much less an NFL team: When you turn the ball over 5 times, 4 interceptions, 1 for a touchdown, 3 others in field position to set up touchdowns, you ain't gonna beat anybody I just talked about, anybody. All right?

And that was a disgraceful performance in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave 'em the friggin' game. In my opinion, that sucked.

Uh, you know, you can't turn the ball over 5 times like that. Holy crap, I don't know who the hell we think we are, when we do something like that. Unbelievable. Five turnovers. One of 'em for -- We threw 4 interceptions for touchdowns this year. That might be an NFL record. That's pitiful. I mean, it's absolutely pitiful, to perform like that. Pitiful.

At this point, Tim Bragg of WRTV-Channel 6, the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, asked Mora if he thought his team could still make the Playoffs. His response might be the most famous coach's press conference rant of all time:

What's that? Ah -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- Playoffs? You kiddin' me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

Mora was right to worry: The Colts won only 2 of their last 6 games, finishing 6-10, and missing the Playoffs. The Colts averaged 30.4 points per game, more than any team in the NFL. So, maybe he should have blamed the defense.

Mora was fired, and has never coached again. Although his regular-season record was an impressive 125-106, and he won a Division title with New Orleans and another in Indianapolis, he went 0-6 in the... Playoffs!

The Colts replaced him with Tony Dungy. He was able to get more out of Mora's former quarterback, Peyton Manning. But, as a defensive back who played on the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, Dungy also built a better defense. As a result, he coached them for 7 years, and, every season, made the Playoffs, including the 2006 season, which ended with him leading them to win Super Bowl XLI.

Mora's son, usually listed as Jim L. Mora, served on his father's staff in New Orleans, and as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and the Seattle Seahawks, and at UCLA, winning an NFC South Division with the Falcons and a Pac-12 South Division with UCLA. As of November 25, 2022, Jim Mora is still alive, age 87; and Jim L. Mora, 61, is the head coach at the University of Connecticut.

On September 17, 2013, while writing my original blog, Uncle Mike's Musings, I discovered that, if you Google just that one word, "playoffs," the first thing that came up was Mora's rant. Not a link to any sport's postseason. I checked again while writing this post, and found that that was no longer the case. Still, it held up for at least 12 years.

*

November 25, 2001 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Oakland Raiders, 28-10 at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 13-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers, 10-7 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

* The Baltimore Ravens beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 24-21 at Alltel Stadium (now EverBank Stadium) in Jacksonville.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Tennessee Titans, 34-24 at the Adelphia Coliseum (now Nissan Stadium) in Nashville.

* The New England Patriots beat the New Orleans Saints, 34-17 at Foxboro Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Buffalo Bills, 34-27 at Ralph Wilson Stadium (formerly Rich Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 18-0 at Cleveland Browns Stadium (now named Huntington Bank Field).

* The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings, 13-6 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Arizona Cardinals beat the San Diego Chargers, 20-17 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Seattle Seahawks, 19-7 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Three days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions, 29-27 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* Also on Thanksgiving, the Denver Broncos beat the Dallas Cowboys, 26-24 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* The next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the St. Louis Rams, 24-17 at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis. (That stadium has gone through some name changes, but now has that name again.)

* And, in this last of 3 seasons between the arrival of the reborn Cleveland Browns and that of the Houston Texans, when the NFL had 31 teams, the New York Jets had a bye week.

The Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was played at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The Calgary Stampeders beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 27-19.

Baseball was in the off-season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Golden State Warriors, 101-85 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (then named The Arena in Oakland).

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 107-88 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* There was a doubleheader at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. In the opener, the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Houston Rockets, 90-83.

* In the nightcap, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets, 105-98. Nick Van Exel led all scorers on the day with 34 points.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Indiana Pacers, 99-88 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And there were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Vancouver Canucks lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-0 at the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena (now the Lenovo Center).

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings, arch-rivals, played to a 4-4 tie at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* And the Dallas Stars beat the Minnesota Wild, 4-3 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Manchester United, 3-1 at Highbury in North London.

November 3, 1869: The Oldest Professional Sports Team In the World

Tiger-Cats 150th Anniversary Logo, 1869-2019

November 3, 1869: The Hamilton Football Club is founded. They play their 1st game on December 18, against the 13th Battalion, now known as the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The final score was not recorded.

The "football" played by this team was what would now be called "rugby union," though it would later evolve into the Canadian version of "gridiron football," with a field 110 yards long and 65 yards wide, compared with the American version, 100 by 53 1/3rd; 12 players on each side instead of 11; and 3 downs to make a new 1st down, instead of 4.

This team is the forerunner of the Hamilton Tigers, who in 1950 merged with the Hamilton Wildcats to become the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. This could, if you choose to define it this way, make the "Ticats" the oldest continuously operating professional sports team in the world.

The distinctions matter. That year, the Cincinnati Red Stockings became the 1st openly professional baseball team, but went out of business after the 1870 season, and the current team named the Cincinnati Reds, while they claim a connection to them, definitively goes back to 1881. The suggestion that the Los Angeles Dodgers date to the Brooklyn Atlantics is also not supported by the facts: The Atlantics were founded in 1855, but folded in 1875, and didn't turn professional until 1870, anyway. Which is key to this team: The Hamilton Tigers remained amateur until 1947.

There are soccer teams in England that claim a longer lineage, including Sheffield Football Club, which was founded in 1857, but they didn't turn professional until 1885, as Britain, and Europe as a whole, resisted professionalism in sports considerably longer than did North America. Germany proved especially resistant: They didn't have professional sports until its national soccer league, the Bundesliga, was founded in 1963.

(If you're a fan of the FX TV series Welcome to Wrexham, Wrexham Association Football Club were founded in 1864, making them the 3rd-oldest professional soccer team in the world, and older than the Tiger-Cats; but they did not turn professional until 1878, more recently than some other British soccer teams.)

On October 18, 1873, Hamilton FC played a new team, the Toronto Argonauts, on the campus of the University of Toronto. The Argos won by a goal and a try to nil -- in modern scoring, 8-0 -- and HFC wore black and yellow for the 1st time, leading to a newspaper calling them the Tigers. This game began a rivalry that still exists today, as the teams' current home fields are just 41 miles apart.

Before the merger, the Tigers won the Grey Cup, the championship of Canadian football, 5 times: In 1913, 1915, 1928, 1929 and 1932. In 1941, the Hamilton Wildcats were formed. With the onset of World War II, the Wildcats were sponsored by the Royal Canadian Air Force, and were renamed the Hamilton Flying Wildcats for the duration of the war. They won the 1943 Grey Cup, although this is officially not counted in the total of the combined team. In 1950, the Tigers and the Wildcats were merged, forming the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, shortened to "Ticats."

Since the merger, they've won 8 Grey Cups: 1953, 1957, 1963, 1965, the Canadian Centennial Cup in 1967, 1972, 1986 and 1999. This is a total of 13. For comparison's sake: The Argonauts have won 18, the Edmonton Elks (formerly the Edmonton Eskimos) 14, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 12, the Calgary Stampeders 8, the Montreal Alouettes 7, the Vancouver-based BC Lions 6, the Saskatchewan Roughriders 4, and the Ottawa Redblacks 1 (although the history of the defunct Ottawa Rough Riders is usually counted with that of the Redblacks, which would give them 10).

Tiger-Cats players with the 1999 Grey Cup

In spite of their success, the Ticats have gone longer without winning the Grey Cup than any other Canadian Football League team, the only one not to have won it in the 21st Century. They have since lost the Final in 2013, '14, '19 and '21.

The Tigers played at the Hamilton Amateur Athletic Association Grounds from 1869 to 1949. The Wildcats played at Civic Stadium, which opened in 1928, from 1941 to 1949. The merged team played at Civic Stadium starting in 1950. In 1971, the stadium got its 1st artificial turf field, and was renamed Ivor Wynne Stadium, for the former director parks for the City of Hamilton.

On August 8, 1961, the Tiger-Cats defeated the visiting Buffalo Bills, at that time a member of the American Football League and playing 65 miles away, in a preseason exhibition game in Hamilton. The Bills, playing the entire game under Canadian rules, lost 38–21. It was the 1st time in 9 tries that a Canadian professional football team beat an American one -- and remains the last such game played, although the Bills have since played "home games" in Toronto, and preseason games between NFL teams have been played on Canadian soil (or Canadian plastic).

After the 2012 season, Ivor Wynne Stadium was demolished, with a new stadium built on the site, and the Tiger-Cats playing the 2013 season at the University of Guelph's Alumni Stadium. The new Tim Hortons Field opened in 2014. (UPDATE: Tim Hortons' 10-year naming rights ran out in 2024. As of the start of the 2026 CFL season, new naming rights have not yet been sold, and the facility is named Hamilton Stadium.)

The Canadian Football Hall of Fame is part of the complex, in recognition of the Tiger-Cats being the oldest CFL team, and the oldest professional sports team in the world. Of its members, 35 either played or coached for either the Tigers, the Wildcats, or the merged team. Despite this, the Ticats have retired only 2 numbers: 10, for 1957-64 quarterback Bernie Faloney; and 68, for 1958-72 defensive tackle Angelo Mosca, who was also a noted professional wrestler.

By claiming a direct connection to the Hamilton Tigers, the Tiger-Cats are older than any professional sports team in the United States of America. The Chicago White Stockings baseball team was founded in 1870, and has been known as the Chicago Cubs since 1903. The Boston Red Stockings baseball team was founded in 1871, and has gone through several name changes, including 2 moves to other cities. Since 1966, they have been the Atlanta Braves.

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November 3, 1869 was a Wednesday. Baseball had just become North America's 1st professional sport, and its season was coming to a close. The 1st openly professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, beat the Louisville Baseball Club, 56-0 in Louisville, Kentucky.