The 1966 Golden Eagles / Sooners Playoff Series

The Ottawa Sooners owned the Interprovincial Junior Football League in the early 1960s but in 1966 the Eastview Golden Eagles were the dominant force on the Ontario side.

An article summarizing their final game of the 1965 season indicated that the Eagles would lose only four players to eligibility rules going into the next season and clearly that experience was a huge factor in their 1966 success. The won their first five games of that season by shut out before losing the sixth to the Sooners by a score of 12-00. They turned that result around for the seventh and final game, defeating those same Sooners 18-16. 

The two teams would then meet for a two game playoff series, both won by Eastview. 

October 16th

October 23rd

I was specific to being dominant in Ontario because following their series victory of the Sooners, the Golden Eagles lost 15-00 to Quebec powerhouse Notre Dame de Grace in Montreal the next weekend.

Among the players on the Eastview team was Paul Paddon who would go on to win the Hec Creighton award at the university of Ottawa in 1970. He only participated in a portion of the season because he went to play in the States for a spell.

Barry Ardern's name should be familiar as a defensive back with the Ottawa Rough Riders from 1968 to 1972. He played on both offense and defense for Eastview.

Jim Foley, another eventual Rough Rider, was also a contributor to that Eastview team. He was with the Riders from 1973 to 1976, earning two Grey Cup victories and the league's 1975 Most Outstanding Canadian award. 

Eastview Golden Eagles Celebrate a Championship

New Plan.

This is a result of the "updates on updates" post a little earlier. Trying to remember all the recent updates and/or determining whether they were worth mentioning was a bit challenging and time-consuming so going forward I'll be posting updates pretty much as they happen. Some days you might end up with a half dozen posts, or we might go several days without one. A lot of the content might seem oddly random but at times, I find things when I wasn't looking for them.

Such is the case here. While filling out Ottawa U's 1966 season results, I'd happened across a victory celebration of that year's Eastview team.

The Golden Eagles are said to have won the Junior Interprovincial Football League title, referred to in the article as the JIHL for some reason (typo?), in defeating the Ottawa Sooners in a two-game series. The league did change names a few times and reporters didn't always seem particularly bothered to get it absolutely right.

For this site's purpose, the content is added to the IJFL page. I've seen the league called Interprovincial Junior Football League most often so that's what I go with.

Very little photography was displayed for that league in either paper at the time (Citizen and Journal) so I try to make use of whatever I come across.