The End Of The Rideaus

The 1928 Junior City League championship (see earlier post) would not be the last for the Rideaus but 1929's would be.

The 1929 Rideaus were a scrappy bunch, to a fault. They started the season with a victory, predictably, against the South Ottawa Roamers and two weeks later found themselves challenged by a revived St. Brigid's club. They didn't take well to it.

They would continue their winning ways throughout the season, gathering a 5-0 record and securing first place. For the fifth time in a row, they would meet Montreal AAA for the QRFU championship but at long last, they won that two-game series by a total score of 17-14.

Way to go, Basil! 

The Rideaus continued their march towards the junior national championship when they defeated the University of Toronto 10-01 at Lansdowne Park. Two weeks later, they met a team from St-Thomas in the national semi-final and that's when things went south for the "Paddlers".

The St-Thomas Tigers won 10-05 and the Rideaus' "fighting" label from the article above would become prophetic. As the game was getting away from the Rideaus, one of the players got heated against a ref and things quickly got out of hand. 

The above description is from the December 2nd, 1929, Ottawa Citizen. The Ottawa Journal adds what might be an important detail.

It appears that while Johnson was being told to leave the field, "suddenly Umpire Bailey staggered under the impact of a blow to the face". In other words, the mob wasn't triggered by Johnson's behaviour towards Foster but by whoever corked Bailey. 

Whatever the case may be, the Rideau Aquatic Club was deeply embarrassed by the whole event and the following day apologized to all involved and withdrew from all sports not aquatic in nature. Just as well, the Canadian Rugby Union suspended them indefinitely later that month. 

Just like that, the top junior team in the city was done.

The following year, a team called the Ottawa Rangers, (not) coincidentally wearing the same colours, would emerge  but that's a story for another day.

As for Arnie Morrison's "lifetime" ban, it didn't hold up particularly well. He was reinstated in 1931, played for the Ottawa Rough Riders from 1933 to 1938 and would later coach Carleton's football team during its formative years. That's how you overcome a ban!

Let's Show Some Love to St. Brigid's

The Ottawa Football Club executives began the formation a four-team football league in 1918 with the goal to develop local talent. Among the teams to come to life was St. Brigid's.

The league had issues around field availability in its early days. They managed a brief season and its initial championship was eventually won by Ottawa Collegiate.

The league grew to six teams in 1919. The purple, green and white clad St. Brigid's club would win all five of its games and take the championship that season. They were coached by Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame and Canadian Football Hall of Fame inductee Sylvester "Silver" Quilty.

In 1920 the city league, now back down to four teams again including St. Brigid's, became a "section" of the Quebec Rugby Football Union.

Brigid's went undefeated (6-0), secured the city championship, then played Westmount in a 2-game series to determine the QRFU champ. They won both games in the series as well by a combined score of 31-15. Their only defeat would come to the Hamilton Tigers Seconds in the Canadian Rugby Union intermediate finals.

St Brigid's would apply to add a senior team in the Ontario Rugby Union in 1921. Over the next couple of seasons, they would struggle against teams from Toronto.

The junior version would continue for a while but the senior club would serve its purpose of improving the Ottawa Rough Riders in an entirely different way. In 1923, it merged with the Big Four entry.

At this point, Ottawa had not won a championship since 1909 and was coming off a season in which they'd posted an 0-5-1 record. Quilty's team would only improve that mark to 1-5 in 1923 but Dave McCann assisted with the coaching and during practices.

McCann became a coach in 1924 (along with Walter Gilhooley who seems to get very little credit). They again showed slight improvement, putting together a 2-4 record, but optimism was still high, as seen in the November 18th Ottawa Citizen..

Indeed, they would win championships in consecutive seasons in 1925 and 1926 under McCann's leadership. Quilty and McCann both entered the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1966.

This is an era that I find somewhat misrepresented in "official" historical reports. It is often said that the Rough Riders changed their name to Senators in 1925 as a result of the merger with St. Brigid's. Clearly that is not the case since the merger actually took place in 1923. The Senators name was in use that year as well, on occasion, but Rough Riders also was used to refer to the club.

In any event, similarly to the Ottawa Trojans merging with the Rough Riders in the mid-40s in order to (among other things) improve the latter club, St. Brigid's did the same two decades earlier.