Dec. 2nd, 1939: Ottawa Rough Riders 23 @ Sarnia Imperials 01

Already going off script a little bit with the game summary below.

The Rough Riders did not win the Grey Cup in 1939 but they did reach the big game. They did so by defeating Sarnia of the ORFU as described in the following article. They suffered a narrow loss in the Cup game, 8-7, to Winnipeg.

Sammy Sward, while not as "household" a name as that of many Rough Riders of yore, had himself a day. "Herman" refer to Charles "Tiny" Herman and Burke's first name, unused in the article portions copied below, is Orville.   

Nov 23rd: Ottawa Rough Riders 08 @ Toronto Argonauts 01

The summary of the first contest in this two-game series for the 1940 IRFU (Big Four) title was posted earlier today.

Nov. 20th, 1948: Hamilton Tigers 00 @ Ottawa Rough Riders 19

This is the game which put the Rough Riders in the Grey Cup for the first time since 1940. They would lose the championship to Calgary, however, in a game now known in part for a horse being ridden into a Toronto hotel lobby by Calgary fans.

Sure, Eight Interceptions Is Impressive, But...

Prior to the REDBLACKS' game against BC this past weekend, I located and posted what I believe to be the first regular season contest between the two teams. It turned out to be one of the first-ever regular East vs. West contests following the formation of the CFL, so a bit more historic than I thought.

I wanted to find a similarly historic event between Ottawa and Montreal in light of the game between the two teams this coming Friday night. I was reminded that Ottawa once picked off eight pass attempts by Montreal in a single game so I tracked that down. 

I was initially confused. I had read that the game took place on October 12th, 1947, and that Ottawa won (as you'd expect, when intercepting eight passes) 22-03. Yet when I pulled up the October 13th, 1947, Ottawa Citizen, it made reference to a loss by Ottawa to Montreal, 07-01. What the hell?

There were actually two game summaries in that paper because there were two games played that weekend. Ottawa hosted Montreal on October 11th, a Saturday, then the two teams played again the next day in Montreal. There were no Sunday papers then so both game summaries were in the Monday paper and I just happened to land on the wrong one. Hence the mention of "yesterday's performance" in the partial article below. 

That would be Howie Turner referred to in the first paragraph. With the score 6-3 in Ottawa's favour, Turner picked off Montreal passer Tommy Cates and ran "nearly forty yards" for the TD to make the game 12-03 at halftime. Then....

There you go. Now about those frayed tempers...

A couple of notable Jakes there. Dunlap played with the Ottawa Trojans for one year and seven seasons with the Rough Riders (and time with the Argos and TiCats as well). He has been general manager of the team and also a part owner.

Gaudar doesn't have much history within the Ottawa region as such, though he was on the 1943 Ottawa Combines team, but he was league commissions from 1968 to 1984.

Those two teams had quite a few people that would go on to be very influential, but that day they were just getting their noses bloodied.

The 1942 RCAF Flyers

The 1929 shutdown of the Rideau Aquatic Club's football program, a self-inflicted punishment for a postgame brawl at the conclusion of a national semi-final game against a team from St. Thomas, appeared to be a killing blow for junior football in the city.

That turned out to not be the case. In fact, junior football only disappeared for one year.

In 1931, a new junior league sprang up featuring six teams. I initially thought that it had lasted only a season or two but while tracking down its results, I came to find that it ran until 1941. A rough page has now been built for it though at the moment it's little more than a skeleton.

Not surprisingly, the league did not run in 1942 during World War II, much like the professional football unions. Ottawa did have a three-team senior league, however, involving the Rough Riders, members from the Air Force and a team of civil servants.

This league only lasted one season. Each team played the other two twice each so there's little to report.

It wasn't without its highlights though. The Rough Riders defeated the RCAF team 18-00 in the first weekend's action. RCAF would then play the Civil Servants a week later with a special guest star hanging around.

There's the two-time All-Star (at the time), the previous year's recipient of the Jeff Russell Memorial Trophy and the Lionel Conacher Award and 1940 Grey Cup champion Tony Golab, home on leave, just casually chilling with the RCAF lads. Could he bring a little star power to the proceedings?

And he did that very thing for the November 7th game against the Civil Service. 

Both the Rough Riders and Flyers ended the regular season with 3-1 records (and the poor Civil Service team was winless with eight points for and 89 scored against) so they met in a playoff, won by RCAF.

Unfortunately, our RCAF club would lose to Toronto's (the Hurricanes) the following weekend in Toronto by a score of 18-13 and therefore fail to qualify to play for the Grey Cup. 

That was it for the Flyers. The following year, a team named the Combines joined the Ontario Rugby Football Union. They became the Trojans in 1944 and eventually merged with the Ottawa Rough Riders. All that is recorded in the "Ottawa Trojans (1943-1947)" page above. 

1940 Ottawa Rough Riders Sketches

I've added a few brief snippets of game summaries from the two match-ups between the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Balmy Beach for the 1940 Grey Cup as well as the team pictures below from the December 9th Ottawa Citizen.

Based on the citizen's coverage, the city was quite proud of its first championship team since 1926. The newspaper provided brief (and sometimes maybe a little padded) "sketches" of the team's roster. That would take up quite a bit of space on the Grey Cup page so I've added them below instead for, hopefully, your reading pleasure. 

Man, there were some quality people on that team. Several have been named to several halls of fame and/or later excelled as coaches and/or builders.

I might spend more time on this specific team, their combined successes are impressive. 

The 1947 Eastern All-Star Team

The 1947 Eastern All-Stars included players from both the Ottawa Rough Riders and Ottawa Trojans even though they played in different leagues and, while it is irrelevant to this site, the university of Western Ontario also contributed a few players to the second team.

At the time, players were chosen from all Eastern football-playing unions, whether Interprovincial (or Big Four, meaning the Riders), the Ontario Rugby Football Union (Trojans) and even the university teams.

Interesting approach, though based on this particular year's dominant results, the IRFU was already judged to be the highest level of play even between pro leagues.

I haven't looked at the all-star teams for the 1945 and 1946 season, the other years in which the Trojans and Rough Riders both played but in different unions, to see whether players from both teams were included. The Trojans and Rough Riders would merge in 1948 though, so if this is not the first time it's happened, it's certainly the last.

Here are the IRFU selections in particular, obviously ecstatic at having been chosen. 

Haigh, in particular, looks like he has somewhere to be! 😄