Bootlegger Bookends

A few days ago, I posted (on my football-related Twitter account) the first article I was able to find about the Ottawa Bootleggers. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to post it here too, but here it is for those of you who are wise enough to not have Twitter accounts. Blow it up with a click.

It is from the April 26th, 1988, Ottawa Citizen. It's certainly possible that another local paper had a story about them prior to that one but I have not come across any.

In attempting to flesh out the Bootleggers page some more last night, I realized that I had the information about their final two seasons all wrong. It was so wrong that I wonder now where I got it in the first place.

The Bootleggers had a rather terrible 1-9 record in 1991 under new ownership and new head coach Larry Cates. But they were a much better team in 1992, posting a 7-3 regular season record and, I believe, winning two playoff games (I may need to edit this part of the post later).

For a good part of the season, the 1992 Bootleggers were quarterbacked by Chris Flynn who is now in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and had been an Ottawa Rough Riders draft pick the previous year. It amazes me, looking back, that the team was not able to recapture the proverbial "lightning in a bottle" that it had from  from 1988 to 1990.

Regardless, this post began with what I believe to be the first major article about the Bootleggers so now we'll look at the back end. What follows is a brief recap of their last playoff win...

...and final game. Rather modest coverage for a team that was quite competitive.

There was a bit more coverage after that...

Since the Bootleggers are today's subject, I will take the opportunity to draw a little attention to a comment left by Warner Miles, who I suppose would be one of few people to have been on the team for at least part of all five seasons, on an earlier post.

To all my Bootlegger friends, if you haven’t read my book and are looking for a little diversion in these trying times, I’ve put a PDF version on my Google drive. You can download it (here).

Sure, now that I've paid for it. ;-)

It came as a surprise to me that some of the photography in the book comes off better in the pdf format. Go figure. Even if you're not crazy about reading an electronic version of a book, run your way through it just to check those out.

National Defence Football League

There will be a new page going up soon for the National Defence Football League. This was a small league made up largely of police and military personnel that began play in 1968.

As the article below from a November 1968 issue of the Ottawa Journal explains, the RCMP Huskies were quite dominant initially and that may have made for some lackluster contests in that initial season.

If not particularly competitive, the league seemed to strike a chord with folks. Its teams became better organized and professional in appearance and for the next couple of years, their games were often said to draw in the range 1,500 to 2,500 spectators.

In 1970, a fifth team joined the league, the Trenton Broncos but at the start of the 1972 season, the Uplands team was no longer included.

Coverage of the league is minimal in 1973 and non-existent beyond that year from what I can gather so perhaps the novelty wore off. But the league did capture the imagination for a few years in the late 60s and early 70s and for that, I plan on keeping a record of its results.

1947: Carleton 24, St. Patrick's 00

Carleton first began playing football in 1945 but they did so in exhibition games for their first two seasons.

As of 1947, they joined the Intermediate Intercollegiate Football League (or Intercollegiate Intermediate Football League depending on which game recap you happen to be reading) and competed against Ottawa U., Queen's, and the opponent they vanquished in their first outing as a member, on October 10th, in St. Patrick's College.

Carleton's next game would be its first of a great many against Ottawa U. The results of that one are displayed here.