Oct 12th, 1927: Glebe 05, Lisgar 02

1927 is largely considered the year in which high school football started in Ottawa.

That claim is not entirely factual; games from 1925 and 1926 have been recorded here so teams did play prior to 1927. However, I believe that the local schools began being affiliated with the EOSSA that year and therefore fully organized for the first time, hence it began the recognize starting point.

The majority of championship results/recaps have been recorded on the High School page with some additional work done recently to track down standings and playoff game finals from the mid-2000s. But tonight, I thought I'd go back and track down the first "official" senior high school game played in Ottawa. 

Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a little unclear.

The brief Ottawa Citizen article below states clearly that Glebe and Lisgar met in the "opening game of the school season", yet the Ottawa Journal's summary of the game made reference to the teams looking crisper than they had in an earlier contest. I was unable to locate any reference to a game being played in the prior two weeks or so, so I don't know for certain what the Journal's writer meant by that. So the article below will do for now until I prove myself wrong.

Nov 4th, 1938: Quilty Comes Off The Bench

I think I  saw something similar in an episode of Coach.

Now that most of the senior football championship summaries are collected, it's time to move on to semi and quarter finals.

The first sudden death playoff game at the senior high school level came in 1934 when Glebe and St. Patrick's were tied at the top of the standings at the end of regular play. Rather than leave it to some tie-breaker, the two teams met for the third time a few days later after having split their regular season meetings at a win apiece. Perhaps in (eventual) response to that situation, a shorter regular season with a semi-final playoff format was added in 1937.

The 1938 playoffs include an interesting anecdote in which St. Patrick's Johnny Quilty went from spectator to key contributor. 

Down 5-0, Quilty's efforts set up the tying score and an interception late in the game sealed the victory.

In light of how often he is mentioned in the strip above, I wish Hazel's first name had been provided.  

In any event, while the playoff system was still in its infancy and the forward pass was still somewhat viewed as a novelty, it seems that roster rules had yet to be fully worked out as well.

The Forward Pass Is Introduced

The portions of a game summary posted earlier today, between the Ottawa Rangers and the Quebec Aquatic Club ("Swimmers") and making reference to the excitement caused by the forward pass, made me question when the first legal forward pass was used by a player representing the capital.

Not surprisingly, it's not an easy question to answer. It may, in fact, be impossible to answer, or depend heavily on your criteria.

The forward pass was well in use by the time that playoff game between Rangers and Swimmers took place in 1931. So we can start by moving backwards from there.

The 1931 Rough Riders opened the season in Montreal on October 11th. They got walloped something fierce, 32-06. But they did attempt a forward pass during that contest. 

Wait...Ogilvie? 

That's awesome. About 18 months ago, I came across Ogilvie's name (as "Ogilvy") while tracking down a game summary for the 1927 senior high school championship. The statement that Ogilvie had entered the "Gallery of the Gods" of the Glebe sporting element tickled me to no end but damned if he may not, in fact, hold the distinction of throwing the first ever professional football forward pass in the city's history.

It's important to quantify that he did so as a professional. The Rough Riders played a game the week before in which a few passes were thrown, but that was an exhibition game. Three junior games were also played that day as the Junior City League began its season and at least one of those games included forward passing. 

Gladstone beat the Ottawa Seconds as the "curtain-raiser" to the Rough Riders game. 

Damn, this Crain dude was a natural! 

Two games would be played on St. Patrick's field that day, the first of which featured the host St. Patrick's team against a club known as the Rangers (not to be confused with the intermediate squad of the same name). The recaps of the action in that contest, won by St. Pat's 08-06, make no mention of the forward pass.

Meanwhile, in Brockville, the intermediate Rangers were welcoming that town's new entry into the QRFU with a 15-01 beating. 

Tommy is hall of fame inductee Andy Tommy Sr. Arnie Morrison played with the Rough Riders for several years and later coached the Carleton Ravens. Morrison-to-Tommy is one hell of a historical connection.

But was it the first? For one thing, it's not clear that the pass above was a forward one, being that Tommy went around right wing. It may have been a lateral. When the pass was a forward one, the summary usually made that distinction.

There's another significant factor at play. Most local teams started using the forward pass in 1931 but junior high school programs began using it in 1929 (one article claimed they started using it in 1927 but I've seen no evidence of that). So to be completely accurate, it was probably a player at the junior high school level who uncorked the first one. 

Unfortunately, the recap of the first junior high school game of the season doesn't see fit to specify who threw it.

In a game about two weeks later in the season, a Lisgar pass attempt was made by one R.A. "Beaner" Sheppard to a teammate named Zelikovitz. Zelikovitz might be Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame inductee Joe Zelikovitz. I'm a little unsure about that as Lisgar's Athletic Hall of Fame states that Joe started playing there in 1930.

Either way, it's difficult to know if Sheppard handled all the throwing duties for the Lisgar team (in fact, it seems doubtful) but if so, it could be that the first forward pass thrown by an Ottawa player almost a century ago was a by a dude nicknamed "Beaner". 👍

So What Happened Before 1927?

Any reference I've ever seen to city high school football championships has only listed winners as far back as 1927. The graphic below, lifted from a 1943 Ottawa Citizen, serves as a good example.

For a number of years, nearly every article about the high school football championship winner would include an updated version of that list. But the list never began before 1927.

For years I assumed that high school football prior to 1927 was being played, but only as exhibition games and not in any organized, regularly-scheduled fashion. In other words, a champion only began being crowned "officially" in 1927.

So with a little time on my hands after Christmas Eve supper, I thought I'd take the time to check and...That's not the case at all.

A four-team league ran in 1926 and a champion was indeed crowned. It was Ottawa College, but it is actually only recognized, that I could find, in a game between two other teams near the end of the regular season. Read on.

I was unable to find a recap of the Ottawa College/Lisgar game. So I wonder if no champion being named is a simple matter of research failing to uncover one.

Adding to the confusion somewhat, years ago at a Gee-Gees game, I bought a records and facts book about the team. It was quite good but, by the writer's own admission, incomplete.

I bring this up because that book stated that Ottawa U. did not even field a club in the late 1910s and early 20s. It claimed that the school only resumed playing football in 1927 after being absent from the gridiron for several years. True enough, it did have a team in the Junior City League in 1927 but if "Ottawa College" refers to some other institution in 1926, I don't know who it could be.

Here are the nearly final standing from 1926. Presumably Ottawa College defeated Lisgar and nailed down an undefeated season.

Emerson's Big Day

Last night I copied an article about the most recent high school championship game. Today, I'm going  to copy one from the least recent.

Any account of high school football (senior) that I've ever come across dates back to 1927. No doubt games were played well before then but that appears to be the year that operations became solidly structured and/or a champion was crowned.

Note that this was a city championship, hence the reference to playing Renfrew the following week in the portion of the article below.

The lasting impression of this game was that one Emerson Ogilvy entered the Gallery of the Gods.

Luckily, the game was not marred by vaccinations.

This would be the first of 13 championships for Glebe between 1927 and 1946. They remain, to this day, the most decorated team in the city for high school football with 17 overall, though the last was in 1991.

As for Emerson Ogilvy, after entering the Gallery of the Gods, his name appeared in the Canadian Junior Football league record books. He is tied with several others for having kicked seven singles in a game for the Ottawa South Roamers in 1928. I had not heard of this team until today but I might just have to do a little digging now!