Just Added: 1988 Bootleggers Game Summaries

Four newspaper articles have been added to the Bootleggers page, including the one below, all recapping games from the 1988 season. There have been one or two very brief ones (as they tended to be at the time, frustratingly) added for the 1992 season as well.

Coincidentally, they are all against one of two teams; either the Binghamton Jets or the Watertown Red & Black. Not surprisingly, I think all but one mentions a significant contribution by receiver Jamie Straw. 😉

Just Added: 1988 Ottawa Bootleggers Playoff Game Summaries

This was the result of finding out that the Northern Football Conference had cancelled their 2021 season already. From memory, I thought they started later in the year so I hadn't really taken the time to check until yesterday but sure enough, they made the announcement in late March, on Facebook.

Too bad, but understandable at this point. Hopefully they manage to return next year.

In the meantime, I copied the semi-pro Sooners results from 2018 but with that level of football on the brain, I tracked down the two Bootleggers playoff victories from 1988, their inaugural season.  

Strangely, the first game received better coverage than the second. Never mind that their contest  against Syracuse could put them in the league's championship game in their first season, it was a much more closely fought battle than the previous one and a come-from-behind victory with a last-second finish. 

The Bootleggers lost to Scranton the following weekend.

Since we were talking about the NFC's season cancellation earlier, the league has yet to make anything public as far as I can see, but the Jr. Riders have stated that the Quebec Major Junior Football League have also pulled the plug on the 2021 season. 

That one worries me. It had only five clubs, three of which were well established (Ottawa, Chateauguay, South Shore) and two that had only entered the league in 2019.

I can't help but question the league's viability at this point. They've played with four clubs several times before, and as recently as 2018, so I wonder if perhaps they had already determined that they weren't going to be able to reach that number for 2021.

The season normally only starts in mid-August.  Its cancellation more four months before its usual scheduled start, with no apparent attempt to delay or shorten it, is a little worrisome to me. I've seen it the timing questioned on social media without response.

I very much hope to see them back in 2022 or failing that, that the Jr Riders are able to join the Ontario Football Conference and resume their in-town rivalry with the Sooners.

1989: The Ottawa Bootleggers Playoff Run

Those of us who attended the 1989 North American Minor League Football Alliance championship game take a certain amount of pride in the fact that we did not perish that day but tend to forget what it took for the Ottawa Bootleggers to host that game in first place.

So with that in mind, we present to you summaries of the two playoff games the 'leggers had to win to earn the right to play for that crown in -15C temperatures during a snow storm. Please note that the weather wasn't a hell of a lot better for those two games either, as each article will point out.

The stated date reflects when the summary appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, not "game day".

Nov 20th: 

Nov 25th:

Just Added: The 1985 AIA Seniors Game

To be accurate, since posting about this game earlier this month, I've created a page specific to it (see above) and added scores for all the games between 1975 and 1986 and recaps for most of those.

I found 1985's recap interesting because it is the shortest one of any of those games to the point that I've reached, yet it would prove to hold the most future star power. It names only two players and both turned out to be huge deals.

Mark Brown that was inducted in the Carleton Ravens Hall of Fame in 1996. If that link fails, it points out that Brown set Ravens records for yards gained in a game, season, and career and he was named the school's male athlete of the year in 1986 and 1987, among many other awards.

Chris Flynn, meanwhile, was a three-time winner of the Hec Crighton trophy while at St Mary's University, given to the most valuable player in Canadian University football. He took St Mary's to the National Championship game twice. He was with the Ottawa Rough Riders in 1996 and entered the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2001. Both men played with the Ottawa Bootleggers. 

I'm sure if the writer and his editor had known that the guys he was watching would go on to be so decorated, the game would have warranted more than four paragraphs of coverage. 😉

1989, Oct 14th: "Bootleggers Stuff Rams"

This will seem rather random...

I was collecting game results for the Carleton Ravens. I've finally got a complete list for the 1990s and was working back to the late 80s when I spotted this Bootleggers game recap, so I thought I would share it.

For those who did not get to enjoy the all-too-brief zaniness that was the Bootleggers, this type of result was not uncommon.

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.

1992: Ottawa Bootleggers 17, Moscow Giants 07

In my post from November 3rd I mentioned a book, penned by Warner Miles, about the Ottawa Bootleggers senior team that played in Ottawa from 1988 to 1992.

I purchased it right around the same time, received it a few days later, and saved it for a five-night business trip which took place last week. I started it on the plane upon my departure and completed it during my last night at the hotel.

I don't know that I am qualified to offer a review but one thing that struck me is the conversational tone of it. It's an easy read, and I don't mean that as criticism. I don't know Mr. Miles but reading his book felt like I had just met him and was sitting across the table from him at a pub as he told me about the whole experience of being a Bootlegger. 

The book is nearly 200 pages long but I'm going to quote from the final paragraph.

...Memories are fading and there's no team website, no alumni association, nor a hall of fame to document the team's history.

He's right and that's wrong (but at least now there's a book...).

I had the Bootleggers on the semi-pro page but that makes them too easy to overlook on this site. Therefore I'm in the process of building a page specific to them. They still won't have a website, but they'll have that. The Sooners semi-pro team info will be moved to the Sooners own page, as will the varsity team info. The semi-pro page will cease to exist.

Administrative stuff out of the way, the Bootleggers' history is rather colourful for a team so short-lived and while he didn't dwell on it, Miles reminded me of an interesting game the team held during their final season. They hosted a team from Russia in an exhibition game.

Here's an abbreviated version of that game's recap from the Ottawa Citizen. It is from June 28th, 1992, and written by Bob Ferguson.

 

No shame in getting stung by that dreaded Isaev to Salychev connection...

That isn't quite the end of the story. The following day, the Citizen reported that more than a baker's dozen of the Russians defected.

That's a hell of a twist and might make a good book of its own. I'd be curious to know whatever happened to that bunch.

Much more to come about the Bootleggers.

1989 MFLA Championship Game: Racine Raiders 15, Ottawa Bootleggers 13

I can't attend a game in harsh conditions, such as Friday's chilly RedBlacks home closer, without being reminded of the Minor League Football Alliance championship game between the Ottawa Bootleggers and Racine Raiders from Wisconsin in 1989.

As the article mentions below, the game took place in -15c temperature. Snow blew sideways throughout the game. Having to sit through it, I can attest that the 30-minute delay described at the end felt significantly longer. The whole "It'll be fun, we can take it" mentality seemed like a good idea sitting around at home two hours before the game but after my arrival at Lansdowne, it didn't take long to realize that I'd made a terrible error in judgement. ;-)

The Bootleggers were an often-dominant semi-pro team in Ottawa from 1988 to 1992. They spent most of the existence in the Empire Football League but played an independent schedule in 1989. You can read more about them on the "semi-pro" page above.

For that matter, one of the team members at the time, Warner Miles, wrote a book about the team. It was published earlier this year and can be purchased print-on-demand through lulu.com.

Miles also has a youtube channel with several videos of Bootlegger highlights and media appearances. Highlights of the 1989 championship game in particular are included in this one.