Parity At Its Finest

We recently had a look a Ottawa Tech's streak of success in high school football in the late 40s and 1950. An unusual thing happened a few seasons later.

Two-game, total points playoff series were not unusual. They were the preferred method of determining supremacy in several leagues, at different levels, during the game's formative years.

In most cases, it was by choice. In Ottawa high school football in the early 50s, it was by necessity.

In 1953, St. Patrick and Fisher Park met for the city championship but that game ended up in a scoreless tie.

The second meeting actually took place the following Saturday (as opposed to Wednesday, suggested above) and the "scarlet and white" of Fisher Park took it 17-00. It was the school's first championship in only its second season playing at the senior level.

The two teams would again meet in the finals in 1954. That time, they would tie 7-7, forcing another game to be played for the second consecutive year. The return match would result in a shut out again, but with reversed roles; it was 12-00 in favour of St. Patrick.

Glebe got into the mix in 1955 but St. Patrick was in no hurry to give up its spot. This was reflected in a another scoreless tie in the final. In the return encounter, St. Patrick would defeat Glebe 11-10 in overtime to defend its crown.

So three city finals in a row had to be played a second time and the third one of them went into overtime. Crazy.

It's funny to read reports about these games today and sense the frustration around how difficult it was to name a champion. One writer at the time even suggested that this whole "sudden death" system was just not working and we'd need to go back to a scheduled two-game series.