"Former Rough Riders coach George Brancato dead at 88"

Former Ottawa Rough Riders head coach George Brancato passed away on October 22nd. I let a few days pass so that I could select the most detailed account of his career and selected the one below from the CBC (Canadian Press).

George Brancato, who won Grey Cups with the Ottawa Rough Riders as a player, assistant coach and head coach, has died (on October 22nd, 2019). He was 88.
Brancato, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., was a halfback/defensive back with Ottawa from 1957-62. 

The five-foot-seven, 177-pound former LSU star earned his first Grey Cup as a player with the Riders in 1960 before claiming a second in '73 as an assistant coach with the club. 

He took over as Ottawa's head coach in 1974 when Jack Gotta left the CFL team for Birmingham of the now-defunct World Football League. 

After capturing the Annis Stukus Trophy as the CFL's top coach in 1975, Brancato guided the Riders to a 23-20 Grey Cup win over Saskatchewan in 1976 in Toronto.
Tight end Tony Gabriel cemented the victory for Ottawa with a 24-yard TD grab late in the fourth quarter from quarterback Tom Clements, a play affectionately dubbed "The Catch." 

Brancato and the Riders narrowly missed registering the biggest upset in Grey Cup history five years later. After finishing the regular season with a 5-11 record, Ottawa surged to a 20-1 halftime lead over the heavily favoured Edmonton Eskimos (14-4-1). But the Eskimos, with Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon, rallied for the 26-23 victory at Montreal's Olympic Stadium. Kicker Dave Cutler's 27-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter provided Edmonton with the fourth of its five straight CFL titles (1978-82). 

Brancato was fired following the '84 season after the Riders posted a 4-12 record. He compiled an 82-90-4 regular-season record with the Riders, finishing behind only the legendary Frank Clair (116) in victories. Brancato's teams were 8-10 in the playoffs.
It was during his CFL coaching tenure that Brancato earned the nickname "The Ice Man," because he routinely chewed ice on the sidelines.  

Brancato returned to coaching in 1989 with the Arena Football League's Chicago Bruisers. After the franchise folded, he served as an assistant with the Dallas Texans. 

He rejoined the Riders in 1993 as a special-teams and secondary coach on Ron Smeltzer's staff. The following year he was an offensive co-ordinator with the expansion Shreveport Pirates. 

Brancato was also an assistant coach with Saskatchewan (1985-86). He finished his coaching career in the AFL with Anaheim and Florida, retiring after the '99 campaign. 

Brancato played both offence and defence, spending time in the NFL with the Chicago Cardinals (1954-55). He made his CFL debut as a running back with the Montreal Alouettes in 1956 and played mostly on defence with Ottawa but still made appearances on the offensive side of the ball. 

Brancato was a CFL all-star in 1961 and was inducted into the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.

The Ottawa Sun made a nice tribute to the man, seen below. The photo halfway down the article is not from the CBC page but rather was on TSN's story about Brancato's passing. It was credited to Getty Images but not to a specific photographer.

Players Of The...Past Couple Of Weeks

The OUA revealed its weekly award winners earlier today which only underscored that I once again neglected to record them a week ago. So I'll do those first.

Defensive Player of Week Seven – Trevor Hoyte, Carleton Ravens

In a must-win game for Carleton, the Ravens were going up against one of the nation’s best, with the McMaster Marauders finding their groove on both sides of the ball. But with Trevor Hoyte at the heart of it, Carleton was able to upend the Hamilton squad and come away with the clutch victory. 

Hoyte was a man on a mission against the Marauders, making his presence felt on multiple occasions across the field. The third-year linebacker picked up eight tackles in the game, all of the solo variety, to produce a game-high in the category. He also added a forced fumble to his impressive stat line. The effort was also a season-high for the Gatineau, Que. native and brought his season average up to over 4.5 tackles per game. 

Not only was the defensive effort important in shutting down the Marauders when it mattered, especially in the opening half, but it was a much-needed effort in a must-win scenario to keep the Ravens’ playoff hopes alive.

For a little additional background, here's some text from the Ravens' announcement about Hoyte joining the program in 2017.

...the defensive standout played for several teams including Bel-Air Norsemen of the National Capital Amateur Football Association (NCAFA), Philemon Wright Falcons of the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association (NCSSAA) and Hadley Hawks.

Special Teams Player of Week Seven – Kevin Victome, Ottawa Gee-Gees

The Ottawa Gee-Gees kept their winning ways intact against Windsor on Friday, more than doubling up on the Lancers when the final whistle blew, and a key figure in the win was on the special teams side of the ball – Kevin Victome. The freshman cornerback has been off to an outstanding start to his career in Garnet and Grey and his latest effort was highlighted by a pair of plays that were a definite factor in the outcome. 

Up only one point in the third quarter, Victome flew off the edge to block a go-ahead field goal from the Lancers. If that wasn’t enough, the Ottawa native made another standout effort early in the fourth quarter. Victome sped downfield on a kickoff, laying a hit on the returner and forcing a fumble that resulted in a scoop and score touchdown for the Gee-Gees who eventually won 54-26. 

For the game, Victome also racked up 4.5 tackles and a pass breakup.

Carleton also placed a player on the Week 8 honourees.

Defensive Player of the Week – Danny McWhirter, Carleton Ravens

In their second straight must-win game to close out the season, the Carleton Ravens did what they had to do, as Danny McWhirter and the team defence stepped up in a big way to shut down Laurier and claim the final spot in the Yates Cup playoffs. 

McWhirter was a one-man wrecking crew for the Ravens, with his eyes on lighting up seemingly any time a ball was thrown in his direction. The third-year defensive back made his initial impact with a pick-six late in the opening half. He got his hands on the Connor Carusello pass and took it back 52 yards to the house to give Carleton a 12-0 lead at the time. He wasn’t even close to being done there; however, as he would haul in his next interception just a few minutes later to halt Laurier in their tracks once again. He would cap off his three-interception day by snagging a deep Carusello pass early in the fourth quarter and keep momentum the way of the black birds. 

McWhirter would finish the day with four pass break-ups, including the three interceptions, as well as one solo tackle, helping to limit Laurier to just 190 yards passing and 10 points on the day and punch Carleton’s ticket to the postseason.

McWhirter as named to the OUA all-rookie team in 2017.

The Old Boys Cup

I find Ashbury's football program simultaneously fascinating and intimidating. It seems that no matter what era I happen to be researching for info about the many teams from Ottawa, I come across a mention of Ashbury playing football on some level, whether it's referred to as senior, intermediate, whatever.

Such an occurrence took place again today when, while filling some gaps (and making corrections) to my Carleton history section, I found an article pertaining to the Old Boys Cup.

I would love to record Ashbury's history but it's a daunting task and one for which I don't know where to begin. The school opened in 1891 and it sure seems as though they started playing football the next day.

So for now, we'll settle with Old Boys Cup series, the first installment of which was played in 1945 and is described below, courtesy of The Ottawa Journal.

You can probably mathematically work out the score of the first game of the series. Ashbury defeated Bishop's 5-2 in Lennoxville on October 9th, 1945.

Not that it's particularly relevant, but the other team in the "Little Big Three" was Lower Canada College.

I don't yet know with full certainty how long the two schools played this two-game-total-points series and/or whether it was always for the Cup. The following year, in 1946, Bishop's won 10-5 and while it was referred to as a game for the Old Boys Cup, no mention of another game to generate a two-game total is found (at least at this point).

Then some later recaps of the series will treat it as a total points series but not mention the cup. The trophy is said to be returning to Ashbury in 1953 "after a long absence" so I suspect that a lack of success caused the coverage of the series to be little sparse after that initial 1945 victory.

Ashbury would continue to win it right through to 1960, and again in 1962 and 1963. Bishop's narrowly reclaimed it in 1964 and started a winning streak of their own. Ashbury was only again able to win it in 1969 and at the point the game had become an exhibition contest.

Back to 1945:

Referee Des Bloom ended up coaching Carleton in 1946.

Nowadays, Ashbury is playing in the NCSSAA and sporting a 4-1 record. They will face winless St. Patrick later this week to close out the regular season.

2019 Panda Game: OttawaU 32, Carleton 10

I am gathering from many sources to recap the 51st Panda Game.

The first is quite simply the USports website an only credited to staff rather than a specific person. Pictures will be credited individually.

A record (and sellout) crowd of 24,600 showed up at Ottawa’s TD Place for the game, and there were plenty of big names present. That included a pair of Ottawa alumni who handled the pre-game coin toss: Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek and Ottawa Redblacks’ kicker Lewis Ward. 

...the Gee-Gees opened the scoring on a rouge, but the Ravens responded with a first-quarter field goal and then a second-quarter touchdown pass from Tanner DeJong to Quinton Soares, taking a 10-1 lead. 

Ottawa struck back after that, though; a safety put them back within seven, and then Carleton running back Nathan Carter fumbled in the end zone and the Gee-Gees’ Tramayne Stephen recovered for a game-tying touchdown. 

After that, Réshaan Davis forced a fumble from DeJong and Francis Perron recovered and took the ball 22 yards for a touchdown that put Ottawa into the lead. Gee-Gees’ running backs Jordan Burgher and Donald Shaw then added further touchdowns, leading to Ottawa’s eventual 32-10 win. 

The Gee-Gees gained only 211 offensive yards on the day compared to the Ravens’ 405, but their defence came up big time after time, and their offence capitalized when it counted.

Photography by Parker Townes

Darren Desaulniers takes over for the Ottawa Sun

“Burn the tape,” was the response from Ravens coach Steve Sumarah after his football team was outscored 31-0 in the second half and lost 32-10 in the 51st edition of the game at TD Place in front of an announced crowd of 24,626. 

As bad as it was in the second half for the Ravens, it wasn’t much better for the Gee-Gees in the first. In fact, it could have been much worse than a 10-1 deficit had Ravens kicker Keiran Flannery-Fleck not missed three of his four field-goal attempts in the half. 

“We left a lot of points on the board and they just fed off our mistakes in the second half. It was embarrassing,” Sumarah said. “We didn’t have them ready to play, and that’s on us as coaches. 

“I’m at a loss. It’s probably one of the worst collapses I’ve ever been involved in. More credit has to go to (uOttawa), and they did some good things in the second half and, at the end of the day, they were the better team.” 

The defence was in good hands for both sides. After the Ravens conceded a safety rather than punt from their end zone, the Ravens’ defence intercepted a Ben Maracle pass at their own one-yard line. 

On the very next play, though, the Ravens fumbled in the end zone and Tramayne Stephen fell on the ball for a Gee-Gees TD that tied the game 10-10. 

Another missed field goal by Campbell Fair resulted in another single, and the Gee-Gees were up 11-10. On the next play, DeJong was hit hard and fumbled before Francis Perron scooped up the ball and ran 22 yards for the score for an 18-10 lead.

The Gee-Gees' own recap of the points at that "The Ottawa defence took advantage of six Carleton turnovers, with captains Cody Cranston, Thomas Carrier, and Luke Griese logging the interceptions for the Gee-Gees."

As a result of his substantial contributions, Stephen was named the defensive player of the week in the conference.

Big time players show up on big stages! Six solo tackles, one tackle for loss, and an unforgettable fumble recovery touchdown makes Tramayne the OUA Defensive Player of the Week!

More Trojans: The Junior Version of 1964

Last night I was pleased to locate more information about a Trojans team that essentially launched the Midget level in Ottawa.

Today, we're going to find out more about a junior team that also bore that name and similarly kicked off their existence with an impressive victory over a defending champion.

These Trojans differ in that they were already established on some level but took on a new identity in joining the Interprovincial Junior Football League.

The Trojans defeated the Ottawa Sooners in their first game.

The name Dan Dever should be familiar, he won three Grey Cups with the Ottawa Rough Riders between 1968 and 1973.

The Trojans won five straight games at the start of the season but lost the final two of the regular season then got clobbered by the Sooners in a 2-game playoff series.

Aug 23rd: Trojans 13, Ottawa Sooners 06
Aug 30th: Trojans 12, Easton Chargers 07
Sep  6th: Trojans 32, Eastview Lions 00
Sep  9th: Trojans 28, Eastview Lions 00
Sep 13th: Trojans 19, Mont Royal Lions 06
Sep 20th: Trojans 16, Montreal NDG Maple Leafs 34
Sep 27th: Trojans 07, Ottawa Sooners 21 

Oct 11th: Trojans 00, Ottawa Sooners 19 (Div. Finals, Game 1)
Oct 18th: Trojans 13, Ottawa Sooners 38 (Div. Finals, Game 2) 

Unfortunately, the Trojans would never duplicate their early success. They struggled a great deal in 1965, going winless (0-8), and were out of the league before the start of the 1966 season.

1980: Midget Level Football Comes to Ottawa

The article below, in regards to the launch of the Ottawa Trojans midget team, is from the July 25th  edition of the Ottawa Journal. It is not the first article about this club, but it is the most detailed.

I don't recall where I got this information now, but the Trojans won that opening game against the defending champs by a score of 14-06, and generated a 7-2 record overall but got upended in the semi-finals. Not a bad way to make a first impression.