You always remember the first time, for everything, and for me that includes my first Canadian football playoff game. I was seated in the end zone at the original Winnipeg Stadium, maybe 12 rows up from field level, on bleachers made of 2×10 planks bolted to metal frames through which the city’s famous chilly November winds could whistle.
The Blue Bombers were hosting the Edmonton Eskimos in the deciding game of the Western Final. The winner was going to the Grey Cup, and this was a thriller. With two minutes left — in the game — Winnipeg led 2-0.
That is not a typo.
About 35 yards from my seat, Edmonton’s Tommy-Joe Coffey, who kicked footballs when he wasn’t catching them, lined up to make a 12-yard field goal that would win the game. He missed. The single point (or “rouge” as today’s commentators sarcastically like to call it) was to give the Bombers a 2-1 victory, except… Winnipeg’s spectacular and reliable quarterback Kenny Ploen, fumbled while running out the clock at the 46-yard-line. With 10 seconds to play, Coffey was back to try another field goal, this time scrimmaging at the five-yard-line.
Final score: Edmonton 4, Winnipeg 2.
The teenagers in the cheap seats do what teenagers used to do when their team lost — they tore down the goalposts. These were posts made of wood anchored in natural grass, and access to the field after hearing the final gun (yes, a gun with blanks) was pretty much unfettered. While I didn’t get a piece of the goal post, I did take home a small piece of the canvas wrapped around it, although I’ve always wondered what protection a thin piece of canvas offered players colliding with goalposts. The canvas was a bitter memory in my room for many years.
This little flashback comes to mind as the 2024 CFL playoffs are about to begin. In 1960, the Eskimos who won that day were playing their FIFTH playoff game of the month! Five games in 18 days, followed a week later by the Grey Cup, which Edmonton lost.
Those were the days of two-game, total-points playoff games in the CFL — in the Western semi-final and the Eastern final. Until they finally disappeared after 1972, these bizarre playoffs made for some great stories, not to mention many injuries.
Here’s one example: in 1963, Calgary crushed Saskatchewan 35-9 in the first game. In the second “half” a rookie quarterback, Ron Lancaster, threw five touchdown passes in Regina for a 39-12 victory to win the semi-final series by a point.
Two years before that, the Toronto Argonauts whipped Hamilton by 18 points in the Eastern Final opener, then lost the second game 48-2 in overtime. Another version of the Argos (1969) blew an eight-point lead and head coach Leo Cahill declared only an “act of God” would prevent the Argos from eliminating Ottawa Rough Riders the next weekend. Ottawa won 32-3.
Wild playoffs had Winnipeg playing six playoff games to get to the Grey Cup against Hamilton, following an unbalanced scheduled that had the Bombers playing 22 games that year, and the Tiger-Cats just 16.
Today? To reach the Grey Cup, a first-place team has to win ONE playoff game.
