Backups vs Juniors, 1919 edition!

Today's offering is a glimpse at a couple of games played in the local junior league more than a century ago.

These were the final two contests of the regular season in this league which was on the verge of becoming affiliated with the Quebec Rugby Football Union the following year. Being that the summary is relatively easy to read and includes the line-ups as well as the standings, I thought it would be a good share.

The next scheduled game, largely meaningless between Senecas and New Edinburgh, never happened. In its place, an exhibition was organized between the city's Interprovincial Rugby Football Union team's "seconds" (basically the Rough Riders practice roster, though not making much use of the name at that point) and a team made up of junior league all-stars.

I believe the Seconds had won the QRFU title at their level and were waiting to see if a contest against another union could and would be scheduled. 

In the meantime, final standings within the junior ranks were being settled by...coin flip. 

Congratulations on that third place finish, New Edinburgh! It was well-earned!

The juniors apparently represented themselves quite nicely in their loss to the IRFU club's back-ups. You can read about that below. 

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". 👍

The Red Feather Tournament(s)

I was in the process of gathering results from Ottawa Tech's 1957 championship season (successfully, I might add) when I happened across the image below. 

That's a rather rare look at players from those junior teams of the time, taken from the September 27th, 1957, Ottawa Journal. Though you probably could not tell with great certainty based on the jerseys, Monk was also a St Anthony's player.  

It was the mention of the Red Feather Tournament that I found intriguing so I did a quick search. It first came about in 1949 but as a high school football showcase and charity fundraiser held in Toronto. Ottawa Tech was, coincidentally enough, the city's first representative in the tournament. 

October 21st, 1949, Ottawa Citizen, written by Bob Abra

Ottawa Tech scored a 9-0 victory over their Humberside opponent and yet...The trophy was awarded the East York Goliaths team on the strength of a scoreless tie against Hamilton earlier in the tourney. 😕

October 24th, 1949, Ottawa Citizen

Wow. Even understanding that this was supposed to be a fun event to raise funds for charity, imagine telling the kids with the only convincing win in the tournament that the trophy is being given to a team that didn't even win its contest?

Back to the photograph of the JIFL players at the top of the post, at this point I don't know if the Red Feather Tournament became one involving junior teams or if the junior circuit adopted the same name for an event of their own (I suspect the latter) but it's probably going to be part of the weekend reading/research.