Uncle Jon would have been proud

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/12/2019 (2399 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg Stadium opened in 1953 and was expanded several times before the last regular season CFL game was played there on Nov. 3, 2012 (a 19-11 win over the Montreal Alouettes).

During the stadium’s history, the Blue Bombers won seven Grey Cups and hosted three Grey Cup games. For the first 38 years of its life, my uncle, Jon Bjarnason, was a faithful  Blue Bombers season-ticket holder. Although his job took him to various parts of Manitoba, he rarely missed a game.

During the 1960s, he would come in for mid-week games, stay overnight at our Mandeville Street home and drive early the next morning to his job at the Portage Creamery.

Jon sat on the west side of the stadium, beside Sid, a bread man, and Jake Epp,  a federal Member of Parliament. He often took me to the games when I was a member of  the South End Zone Touchdown Children’s Club, but he was likely not impressed when some of us played football on the adjoining baseball field instead of watching the football game.

Jon was there for the last-play field goals into the north end zone by Tommy Joe Coffey (for Edmonton, in 1960) and Jack Abendschan (Saskatchewan, 1972) that denied the Bombers trips to the Grey Cup.

However, Jon also witnessed many great victories. In 1962, Farrell Funston’s unlikely last-play touchdown put the Bombers into the ‘Fog Bowl’ Grey Cup. On the snowy  Wednesday night of Nov. 17, 1965, the Bombers beat Calgary 15-11 on a Kenny Ploen to Leo Lewis touchdown pass in Game 2 of the best-of-three West Division final. On Sept. 7, 1984, the Bombers soundly defeated Ottawa 65-25 in the middle of a season that saw them end a 22-year Grey Cup drought.  He was there on July 5, 1986, when the Bombers posted the largest shutout in CFL history, beating Saskatchewan 56 to 0.

The 1990 Grey Cup-winning season was  Uncle Jon’s last. He died in July, 1991.

A few months after his death, Winnipeg hosted the Grey Cup game for the first time. As I attended the game with my two sons and 51,982 other freezing fans, I thought of him.

On Nov. 24 of this year, the Bombers won their first Grey Cup since the 1991 death of one of one of their biggest fans.

Fred Morris is a community correspondent for St. James. Reach him at fredmorris@hotmail.com