For iconic Grey Cup moments, Winnipeg always seemed to share the grand stage

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/11/2016 (3539 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s just one more sleep until kickoff at the 104th Grey Cup game in Toronto, and all you Gridiron Gods know exactly what that means, don’t you?

It means it’s time to put down this newspaper, stride purposefully into the bathroom, take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself a game-changing question, namely: Am I ready for the big game, an annual ritual that not only decides supremacy in the Canadian Football League, but an iconic matchup that brings Eastern Canada and Western Canada together on a frozen field for the express purpose of beating each other’s brains out?

What was that you said? You are ready for the Cup? Ha ha ha! The mere fact you think you are ready proves to us that you are, in fact, totally unprepared.

You haven’t even bothered to visit the liquor and grocery stores to stock up on refreshing beverages and grease-containing snacks, have you? You could head there right now, but you’d be facing lineups even longer than the Great Wall of China.

Your best bet is to hop on a plane and fly to Toronto, where, before the underdog Ottawa RedBlacks tackle the mighty Calgary Stampeders at BMO Field, organizers will be holding what they hope will be Canada’s largest tailgate party, wherein fans feast on grilled foods and cold brews in the parking lot.

Or you could just pop a cold one — yes, root beer is acceptable — and enjoy home-field advantage as you ingest today’s fact-filled list featuring the Top Five Weird and Wonderful Winnipeg Grey Cup Moments:

5) Go West, Young Trophy — Instead of beating around the proverbial bush, we are going to come straight out and tell you what was so important about the 23rd Grey Cup — it was the first time a team from the West won the CFL’s Holy Grail. On Dec. 7, 1935, Winnipeg pulled it off when they punted the heavily favoured Hamilton Tiger-Cats 18-2 in front of 6,405 fans at Hamilton Amateur Athletic Association Grounds.

You probably think this was a great day for the Blue Bombers, right? Well, you could not be more wrong, because at the time Winnipeg’s gridiron gang was known as the Winnipegs, or simply the Pegs. By most accounts, it wasn’t until training camp of the following year when the team adopted its modern name after legendary sportswriter “Uncle” Vince Leah famously declared “these are the Blue Bombers of western football.”

The West only started competing for the Cup in 1921, when the Edmonton Eskimos were hammered 23-0 by the Toronto Argonauts in the ninth Cup matchup. In 1924, the undefeated Winnipeg Victorias qualified for the national championship, but never went. Why? The players and club executive couldn’t agree on which railway to travel on, CNR or CPR.

Getting back to 1935, Winnipeg likely won because it were one of the first clubs to import American college players, including future Hall of Famers like star punt returner Fritz “Golden Ghost” Hanson, QB Russ Rebholz and receiver Greg Kabat. Hanson had 334 yards in punt returns and sealed the 1935 victory with a 78-yard return for a TD.

It was a great moment for Winnipeg and the West, although there were issues to overcome. Chirps the website of the CFL Hall of Fame: “When it came time for them to check out of their hotel in Hamilton, they found that they did not have enough cash to pay the bill. Les Isard, a club executive, came to the rescue.”

4) The Wind Bowl — There were a lot of reasons to remember the 53rd Grey Cup, wherein our beloved Bombers once again squared off against the hated Tiger-Cats on Nov. 27, 1965, at Toronto’s CNE Stadium. For starters, it was the first time instant replay was used in a Grey Cup telecast.

Which probably came in handy, because gusts of up to 80 km/h blasting into the stadium off of Lake Ontario played havoc with the kicking and passing game, enshrining it forever as the Wind Bowl. A CBC announcer at the time declared it “the windiest Grey Cup game ever.”

The winds were so intense, CFL officials, along with Bomber coach Bud Grant and Hamilton coach Ralph Sazio, agreed to some special rule changes: Officials were given greater discretion to ignore the no-yards rule on short kicks, and when the kicking team punted into the wind, the ball was automatically whistled dead on contact with the returner or the ground.

“In the third quarter, on his own 35-yard line, Winnipeg punter Ed Ulmer watched in amazement as his punt into the wind sailed right back towards him,” notes the website of the Canadian Football Research Society. “But Ulmer hesitated, which allowed the veteran Ticat defensive tackle John Barrow to scoop up the ball and run into the end zone for an apparent touchdown. However, because of the pre-arranged rules, the officials had to call the ball dead on contact.”

We are not saying anything bad about Bud Grant, but he opted to concede three safeties over the course of the game rather than attempt to kick into the gale-force winds. In the end, after snuffing out a last-minute Bomber drive on a third-and-one gamble, the Ticats captured the Cup, edging the Blue and Gold 22-16. The margin of victory? It was the six points Hamilton got from the three yielded safeties.

3) The Mud Bowl — In 1950, a then-record 27,101 fans watched with some difficulty as the Bombers and the Toronto Argonauts got down and dirty on Nov. 25 in the 38th Grey Cup game at Varsity Stadium in Toronto. We’re not the first to say it, but it was a game only mudders could love, remembered more for the horrific field conditions than the game itself.

A day earlier, six inches of heavy snow blanketed the field, which wasn’t protected with a tarpaulin. Instead, bulldozers were sent out to clear the snow before the game. Bad decision because the snow turned to a steady rain and the bulldozers chewed ruts in the field, already in terrible shape from the regular season. How bad was the bog? Check out this report from the Canadian Football Research Society: “It was (Winnipeg offensive tackle) Buddy Tinsley, the 260-pound lineman who lay motionless in a deep puddle of mud (also known as the centre field lagoon) only to be turned over by referee Hec Creighton in response to fans’ frantic screams. Tinsley acknowledged afterwards that his leg was numb but he really hadn’t lost consciousness even though it might have looked like he was about to drown.” One writer later complained the field was like “a pig’s wallow.”

Winnipeg’s star QB Jack Jacobs fumbled twice and was pulled from the game. Toronto QB Al Dekdebrun taped thumbtacks to his fingers to better grip the ball, but the officials made him remove them at halftime. It was so bad the Argos kicked the winning point in the first quarter, a rouge. A blocked punt in the third quarter wrapped up the scoring, leading to the game’s only touchdown and allowing Toronto to escape with a 13-0 victory in what everyone agreed was the dirtiest game ever.

2) The Fog Bowl — If you haven’t heard about this one, you’re not a true Blue Bomber fan. Again, we’re not the first ones to say this, but it was easily the best game that no one ever saw.

The 50th Grey Cup game, pitting the Bombers against the Tiger-Cats, began normally on Dec. 1, 1962, at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium in front 32,655 people. By the second quarter, a thick fog began to roll over the field thanks to cold, moist, humid air from Lake Ontario.

It was like the fog you see in old horror movies; fans, players, referees, and millions of TV viewers couldn’t see a (bad word) thing. “It was so foggy that I thought we were in London, England,” joked Ticat kicker Don Sutherin at the time. “I remember scoring a touchdown on a reverse and I’m pretty sure nobody saw me,” quipped Hamilton legend Garney Henley. Chimed in Winnipeg’s Hall of Fame QB Kenny Ploen: “You couldn’t throw anything long. They wouldn’t see the ball coming.” Conditions during the Fog Bowl continued to deteriorate as the afternoon wore on, and with just nine minutes and 29 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the league decided to do something it had never done in a Grey Cup game — suspend play until the following day, a decision that sparked considerable booing.

On Sunday, under clear skies, the game resumed before a sparse crowd of just 15,000 people, those who had kept their ticket stubs. Several players were so banged up, they couldn’t finish the game on Sunday. In the end, nothing much happened in the final minutes, allowing the Bombers to cling to a 28-27 Cup victory in what was the first CFL game ever broadcast by an American network, ABC’s Wild World of Sports. It was the only CFL game shown in the U.S. until about 1980. Apparently the rest were lost in the fog.

1) Have a Nice Trip, Mr. Bibbles — The 45th Grey Cup, wherein the Bombers battled the Tiger-Cats on Nov. 30, 1957, at Toronto’s Varsity Stadium, was the first CFL championship televised coast to coast. Which means there were a lot of eyeballs looking on when arguably the most bizarre and infamous event in Grey Cup history took place. It began when Hamilton’s Ray “Bibbles” Bawel intercepted a Winnipeg pass and had a clear path to the end zone.

That’s when fate intervened in the form of a beret-wearing spectator named David Humphrey, a 32-year-old defence lawyer and future Ontario judge, who stuck his foot out and tripped Bawel before he could score. As you can imagine, chaos ensued. In front of the TV cameras, Bawel jumped to his feet looking for someone to strangle. The officials huddled and the referee penalized the Bombers half the distance to the goal line, a kind of compromise for an unprecedented intrusion. Not surprisingly, drinking was involved. It turns out Humphrey got into the game without a ticket because he knew most of the officers working security. Once inside, he told The Globe and Mail in 2007, he ran into a former client who had completed his parole, so the two shared some whisky.

The next person he met was the jury foreman in a first-degree murder case that sent Humphrey’s client to the Don jail, where he was hanged in 1956. According to The Globe and Mail, the Winnipeg-Hamilton Cup was just days after the one-year anniversary of the hanging. “The foreman wanted to shake hands,” Humphrey told the paper. “I wouldn’t. I was upset… The next thing I know I see this guy running for a touchdown. I was in such a state I stuck my foot out.” After the historic trip, the tipsy prankster was allowed to walk out of the stadium without being arrested. He took a sideline chair with him. “A cop stopped me and asked what I was doing,” he recalled in 2007. “I told him, ‘Don’t you know who I am? I’m the guy who tripped that player.’ He laughed and said, ‘Good. Take the chair.’”

His naughty act had zero effect on the game, a lopsided 32-7 win for the Ticats. As for Humphrey, he eventually gave Bawel a watch with the inscription “Grey Cup 1957 from The Tripper,” and went on to become a Superior Court judge.

Unfortunately, our Bombers won’t be in the 104th Cup Sunday, which means the weather will most likely be lovely, and the only trips into history will be well within the rules.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca