1943, Nov 6th: "Early Lead Wins For Celts"

St. Patrick's College won the Senior Interscholastic championship in 1943 behind the guidance of former Ottawa Rough Rider Bunny Wadsworth. The article below, from the Ottawa Citizen, summarized the victory against Ottawa Tech that put the team in the finals against Glebe.   

Sept. 8th, 1937: Welcoming (back) Stan O'Neil

The image below is from an unusual source for this site: The North Bay Nugget!

O'Neil was among the first American players to suit up for the Ottawa Rough Riders. He did not participate during the 1936 season, however, because he did not meet the requirements to do so. The article below, also from the Nugget, explains. 

Following that ruling, O'Neil returned to the States. He spent the summer in Ottawa in 1937 in order to meet the criteria to play for the Rough Riders in the fall. He remained with the team through to the 1941 season inclusively, winning the Grey Cup in 1940.

There is an error in the article above, aside from the one-word spelling of Rough Riders. The other player ruled ineligible in 1936 was Tony Rosso, not Tommy. While O'Neil chose to head home, Rosso stuck around town and coached St. Patrick's to their first Eastern Ontario senior high school championship.

I don't believe that Rosso returned to the Rough Riders or to St. Pat's for that matter. The Ottawa Journal reported, in May of 1937, that Rosso had continued coaching but at Washington and Jefferson College in the U.S.

But in 1936, neither man could play for the Rough Riders because, in effect, they didn't spend enough time pretending to live in Canada.

Oct. 1907: Rough Riders and St. Patrick's Merge

The history of the Rough Riders includes a number of mergers and amalgamations with other local clubs. They absorbed the Ottawa Trojans in the mid-40s, combined with a St. Brigid's club in 1923 and merged with the University of Ottawa squad in 1913.

Much of the details of those events have been recorded here, so today we'll go even further back to the club's rebirth in 1907 as the IRFU (Big Four) was being formed. The Rough Riders and a club from St. Patrick's combined to join the new Union. 

It wouldn't be a an Ottawa football team restructure without a debate about the name!

I haven't come across a list of name suggestions as of yet. The Rough Riders name stuck, perhaps in part because most of the new roster was built from the previous year's version of that team. The articles above are from October 2nd, the one below is from October 11th.

Using the "professional" tag for this post is more a reference to what this team would become than how it operated at that point, based on the second item below. 

Their first season under the new structure would be underwhelming as they achieved two wins and four losses. The 1908 club, however, would win five out of six and take first place in the Big Four.

St. Patrick's College's 1965 Season

It can be argued that St. Patrick's College could have a more prominent place in Ottawa football history if only they'd had that one defining moment. In 1965, they came very close to making that loud statement.

The Ottawa-St. Lawrence football conference, in which St. Pat's played, was split into two divisions. St. Patrick's College was fairly dominant in theirs, but Carleton and uOttawa were in the other division and were each 5-0 going into that year's Panda Game. As a result, most of the eyeballs were aimed in the direction of those two schools while St. Pat's was quietly putting together a solid season of their own.

Here are St. Patrick's results in their four-team division.

Oct  2nd: @ Macdonald College W 33-14
Oct  9th: College Militaire Royale W 45-07

Oct 16th: Bishop's W 16-00
Oct 23rd: @ Bishop's L 07-25
Oct 30th: @ College Militaire Royale W 39-00
Nov 6th: Macdonald  College W 32-09

The final game above secured the Eastern division for St. Pat's, the reward for which would be to meet the 7-0 uOttawa Gee-Gees for the Conference Crown. 

In the championship game, uOttawa would overcome a  23-14 deficit and score 25 unanswered points to win 39-23. To have held on to their early lead to conquer an undefeated, perennial championship contender, perhaps St. Patrick's presence in local football history would be a little more commonly known.

They placed a few players on the conference all-star team. That list, and the team picture below, are both lifted from the school's1967 yearbook. 

St. Patrick's College merged with Carleton University in 1967, effectively terminating the football program, but they were not shy about taking credit for bolstering the Ravens roster. The following is from St. Patrick's 1968 yearbook.

The summaries for the division-clinching game against Macdonald above make mention of a past St. Patrick's championship. Unfortunately, one newspaper states that it was in 1957 while the other claims it was in 1958. I believe the former to be accurate but we'll do a little research there and shine a spotlight on it soon. 

1934 Senior High School Playoffs: Glebe 8, St. Patrick's 00

I intend to add many more game summaries to this blog and where senior high school football is concerned, this particular match-up is the best place to start.

This game has the distinction of being the first playoff meeting in the history of the sport at that level. Prior to that, meaning from 1927 to 1933, the team at the top of the standings by season's end was deemed the circuit's champion.

In 1934, Glebe and St. Patrick's had identical records and split their two meetings during the season.  

The system didn't catch on immediately. I'll need to do some double-checking but I believe teams first played semi-finals in 1937 on their way to naming a champion and the method held up from that point on.

We'll figure it out for sure later but for now we know that Glebe and St. Pat's staged the first ever playoff game in Ottawa senior high school history. 

The 1955 Red Feather Tournament: St. Patrick's 27, East York 01

In 1954, some complained when St. Patrick's did not get an opportunity to play Nepean for the right to represent the region in Toronto in the annual Red Feather Tournament.

In 1955, things fell into place a little more nicely. St. Patrick's opened the season with a couple of wins  and it just so happened that they were going to play another undefeated team a few days prior to the tournament representative being chosen. That team was Fisher Park, and though St. Pat's only won by a score of 01-00, it was enough to perceive them as worthy of being our flag-bearers, so to speak, and to make the trip to Toronto. 

St. Patrick's actually had one more game at home to settle prior to making the trip and it turned out to be against the previous year's "controversial" Red Feather Tournament participant, Nepean.  Referred to as a "tune up" match, St. Patrick's won that game as well, with a more convincing score of 13-00.

Their selection thus further justified, the following St. Pat's team headed for Toronto.

The trip alone was something of an adventure. 

Undaunted by a near-tragedy, the kids dominated their opposition...

...And yet were not recognized as tournament champions. Bloor is mentioned in the article above because they were given that honour, partially based on a 28-00 victory against a school from Timmins.

And so again an Ottawa rep excels at the tourney but the prize is awarded to another club. St. Patrick's didn't appear to be too broken up about it, however; they went on to successfully defend their 1954 senior championship and in doing so, extend their undefeated streak to 17 games.

Nepean At The 1954 Red Feather Tournament

As explained previously, the Red Feather Tournament featured a series of exhibition games between high school football teams from various parts of Ontario with the purpose to raise funds for charity and to promote sportsmanship. For results involving teams from the Ottawa region, click on the "Red Feather Tournament" tag on the right side of the page under "Activity". 

While it was an exhibition, the events of 1954 demonstrated that the tournament was taken quite seriously, at least locally. 

When the time came to choose a participant, the Nepean and St. Patrick's teams each had equal 3-0 records. Nepean was chosen by vote of the league's directors, upsetting some St. Patrick's supporters. There were some that felt that the two eligible clubs should have a playoff match to determine that year's participant. On the other hand, one Bob Landau explained the reasoning behind Nepean's selection in a letter to the Ottawa Citizen.

And so off went Nepean.

They would lose 9-0 to the Tournament champion University of Toronto Schools team. No doubt those who felt strongly that St. Patrick's should have been the Ottawa rep (or at least given the opportunity to compete for the selection) were left to wonder what might have been.

The dispute generated a little buzz when the two teams prepared to meet for the final game of the regular season.

St. Patrick's furthered their argument when they shut out Nepean (though I doubt any bones were actually shattered) 14-00 to capture first place in the six-team league.

The playoffs beckoned. Nepean was upset by Fisher Park in the semi-finals so they would not get another shot at St. Patrick's. The "Celts" ended up winning the senior championship.

Did St. Pat's success throughout the rest of the season, and against Nepean specifically, invalidate the selection of Nepean for the Red Feather tournament though? Not in the mind of Citizen letter writer CG MacNay. 

Indeed. We're certainly not in a position to know who was throwing punches and knees, perhaps Nepean was equally responsible for that type of behaviour when the two teams met. But it does seem like those who were vocally opposed to Nepean being sent to the tournament were missing its point by a fair margin.

Oct 25th, 1952: "Irish Edge Hamilton, 7-6, In Red Feather Tournament"

The 1949 Red Feather Tournament was summarized on March 18th and the 1950 edition on April 3rd so today, we move on to 1952.

What happened in 1951? Well, Glebe lost 16-01 to the Windsor Patterson Panthers in that one so we won't dwell on it. 😉

In 1952, St. Patrick's took their turn at the tournament and squeaked out a win with a strong second half.

Despite the win, the trophy was awarded to North Toronto Collegiate by the judges, apparently to some controversy as some thought a team from Etobicoke was more deserving.

St. Patrick's High School's Golden Era

The 1953 St. Patrick's senior high school team would lose that year's championship game 17-00 to Fisher Park in a contest that had to be played a second time because the first ended in a scoreless tie.

If that loss was discouraging for supporters of the "Celts", the next couple of years would prove to be quite rewarding. St. Patrick would go undefeated throughout the 1954 and 1955 seasons, playing in 17 contests without a loss (15 wins and two ties, to be exact) and, obviously, securing the championship both years. The 1955 team picture is below and was added to the High School page earlier today.

Different reports suggest different lengths to St. Patrick's undefeated streak. Some say it was 16 undefeated games, some claim it was 17.

The solution is simple; the 17 total includes a victory in the Red Feather tournament described in the March 18th, 2021, post on this blog. Whether that game should be included is certainly debatable since the Red Feather event is essentially an out-of-town exhibition for charity. Nevertheless, St. Pat's did win the game in which they participated for that event so let's work with 17.

I became curious as to when the streak ended. It was 17 going into the 1956 season. Did they extend it at all? Did they reach 20+ games undefeated?

I was expecting some drama around the event but...The streak ended right away. Their next defeat took place in the opening contest of the 1956 season against Ottawa Tech. St. Patrick's streak started with the first game of 1954 and ended in the first game of 1956, exactly two undefeated seasons.   

St. Patrick was unfazed by the loss, however. In fact, they suffered another loss during the season to finish with a 3-2 record but still ultimately won the league's championship for the third year in a row. And they did it against the team that ended their streak, no less.

That would mark then end of St. Patrick's dominant run. They would come close to winning the crown again in 1971, and were named co-champions of their school board in 1972, but they have not earned a senior football title since the 1956 season.

We Should Know More About...Matt Anthony

The mention of Matt Anthony in the earlier post about the 1947 all-star team added a little emphasis to the breadth of his contributions to the game for me.

In adding game results for the Gee-Gees over the past few months, his name appeared constantly. And so it would, since he was head coach there for 15 years. I continued to come across it when doing the similar research for the Sooners.

His playing career is less celebrated (in my view, anyway), as is his coaching stint for the St Patrick's team, but when those are taken into account, he has impacted the game positively at the high school, junior, university and pro levels as either a coach or player. Very few people can make that claim.

Let's let the also seemingly ever-present Martin Cleary break it all down for us. The article below is in effect Anthony's sports obituary from the Ottawa Citizen following his passing in 2000.  

The article accurately states that Anthony was the Sooners head coach in 1971 but he was also an assistant on the 1970 team.

I've been trying to determine when he coached at St. Patrick but I can't seem to land on that. I'm not questioning whether or not he did, but I would like to see if he had his standard level of success there. This post will be updated if I finally manage to find those results.

1947: Carleton 24, St. Patrick's 00

Carleton first began playing football in 1945 but they did so in exhibition games for their first two seasons.

As of 1947, they joined the Intermediate Intercollegiate Football League (or Intercollegiate Intermediate Football League depending on which game recap you happen to be reading) and competed against Ottawa U., Queen's, and the opponent they vanquished in their first outing as a member, on October 10th, in St. Patrick's College.

Carleton's next game would be its first of a great many against Ottawa U. The results of that one are displayed here.