2010: Junior Riders Win Title to Complete Perfect Season

The following article was added to the Jr. Riders page earlier today.

I think I was at that one. I recall leaving the house, looking at the snow fall and thinking "Meh, it can't go on much longer."

Then I was waiting for a bus at Bayview thinking "Meh, it can't go on much longer."

Then I arrived at the stadium and thought "Meh, it can't go on much longer."

It went on much longer.

Pictures above copied from the QJFL Facebook group.

Eastview Golden Eagles Celebrate a Championship

New Plan.

This is a result of the "updates on updates" post a little earlier. Trying to remember all the recent updates and/or determining whether they were worth mentioning was a bit challenging and time-consuming so going forward I'll be posting updates pretty much as they happen. Some days you might end up with a half dozen posts, or we might go several days without one. A lot of the content might seem oddly random but at times, I find things when I wasn't looking for them.

Such is the case here. While filling out Ottawa U's 1966 season results, I'd happened across a victory celebration of that year's Eastview team.

The Golden Eagles are said to have won the Junior Interprovincial Football League title, referred to in the article as the JIHL for some reason (typo?), in defeating the Ottawa Sooners in a two-game series. The league did change names a few times and reporters didn't always seem particularly bothered to get it absolutely right.

For this site's purpose, the content is added to the IJFL page. I've seen the league called Interprovincial Junior Football League most often so that's what I go with.

Very little photography was displayed for that league in either paper at the time (Citizen and Journal) so I try to make use of whatever I come across.

The Largest Gee-Gees Hall of Fame Class Ever!

With a twist...The program issued the following press release last Friday.

The largest class of inductees in Gee-Gees Football Hall of Fame history will be enshrined this year; three teams and two individuals have been selected for the honour. There are five decades of Gee-Gees history being celebrated; the 1960, 1970, and 1980 championship-winning teams will all go in to the Hall of Fame this year along with defensive standouts Steve Glenn and Sébastien Tétreault.

Naming entire teams to the Hall isn't a first for the Gee-Gees. In 2015 they inducted the 1975 team, then in 2018 the 1965 edition entered the hallowed halls. Evidently, it helps to play at Ottawa U. during a year that's a multiple of five.

So let's see what the university has to tell us about the 1960 team in particular. 

The 1960 team was the first of Matt Anthony's undefeated teams, playing to a 7-0 regular season record in the Ontario Intercollegiate Football Conference. The team then defeated Loyola for the Ontario-St. Lawrence Intercollegiate Athletic Association Championship, winning by a score of 49-13 in the title game. Over the course of the season, the Gee-Gees outscored opponents 259-78 before travelling to Halifax for the Atlantic Bowl.

The recap of that 49-13 victory is, unfortunately, not very good. The Rough Riders won the Eastern Conference that same weekend so much of sports coverage was dedicated to them. Here is the Journal's version.

The team lost the game out east to St. Francis Xavier by a score of 21-06. That St. F-X team was coached by Don Loney, a teammate of Gee-Gees head coach Matt Anthony on the 1951 Rough Riders Grey Cup winning team.

Here's a look at the squad as well as as good a roster as I could find. Too bad about the gash on that page of The Citizen. Tough break, 63.

I'll probably have a closer look at the 1970 and 1980 teams as well before too long but wanted to get the ball rolling with these guys.

As for the individuals named, Steve Glenn was a linebacker who led the Ontario Quebec conference  in tackles in 1992. He was the team's MVP that year, a team captain from 1992 to 1994 and named to the conference's all-star team on three occasions. In the pros, he was mostly known as a reliable long-snapper. He played professionally from 1996 to 2005 including three season with the Ottawa Renegades.

Tétreault played from 2006-2010 and was a three-time All-Canadian on the defensive line. He is currently the head coach of the Cegep de l'Outaouais Griffons.

Update On Updates

I've made quite a few updates to a number of pages on this blog but unless you were looking specifically for them, you couldn't possibly know about them.

Some are rather dry, "bookkeeping" types, like recording RedBlacks draft results. If you were looking to find out who the team drafted in 2017, there are several places you could look, but I prefer to keep that data here as well for my own reference.

Others are much harder to come by (like the 1952 Rough Rider draft results in the previous post). It is those ones that I wish to share with you today.

Rather than write out a few lines from some Panda Game recaps, when possible I've carved out the newspaper article(s) about the game and posted that under the score. I've done this for a few of the ones in the 80s and 90s, including the 1989 game below which included a rather good celebration pic.

Clicking on either image should make it easier to read, either off this post or on the Panda Game page itself.

I also dug up all the results from the Ottawa Sooners' 1974 National Championship season. That took more effort than I'd anticipated. Due to playing two two-game series in the playoffs, they actually played 16 games in total that season. Stats from the championship game are included now as well.

I'll segue from that to updates to the IJFL page. Several scores have been added to the long-defunct junior league but anyone interested in the early days of the Sooners should give that page a look. Many (all?) of the accomplishments from their first decade of existence are recorded there. I'll probably copy a lot of it onto their own page but as long as I have it in at least one place, that's good enough for now.

I've built a page for the Grey Cup. Again, this is mostly information you can get in many, many places, however I thought it would be interesting to copy directly from the newspapers of the time, mostly the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Journal. I'll probably add to that later today. I particularly liked finding the two-page spread of the 1926 champs.

Finally, on the Ottawa Trojans page, I've added an added an article about that team changing its name from Combines between 1943 and 1944 and picture which displays their uniform quite nicely. That's been hard to land.

This is all in addition to adding whatever details I come across about high school, midget and junior championships.

The Long, Long, 1952 College Draft

If you're an NFL fan who thinks that league's draft taking four days is far too long, you might find yourself thankful that they don't run it like the first Big Four college draft.

The rules for it were ironed out on April 5th during a meeting of league (Big Four) officials. 

The driving force was market size; Ottawa and Hamilton did not have access to as great a number of local amateur players as Toronto and Montreal did. The Rough Riders were defending champions, mind you, but evidently this was still perceived as a disadvantage.

Coming up with the rules was not an issue because the initial selections were made that day and reported in the newspaper on April 7th.

Most sources, including cfl.ca as I write this, consider this to be the entire draft class and name only these players.

It was not. Teams could continue to make selections right up to training camp, apparently. Ottawa made their next selection on April 14th.

Then Ottawa's next selection was announced on May 3rd.

And then the final pick was revealed in the first week of July.

So all told, the draft took approximately three months to complete.

Now something changed along the way. The league as a whole announced the selections named its selections about a week later. Ponton above is not among them but we have a new name in Dannis Masulka from McMaster.

And yet...Ponton was on the rookie picture! Here is your 1952 draft class. I suspect that Ponton's omission above is simply an error.

Vince Colliza is not included in the picture. He was acquired by Hamilton in late July or early August about 10 days after the shot was taken.

A July 31st article made it seem as though Colliza was signed as a free agent by the Ti-Cats, but one from a few days later (in a Windsor paper) provides details for a trade of his rights to Hamilton. Again, this is a guess, but Hamilton might have signed him before realizing they weren't allowed to, so some sort of compensation had to be worked out.

All of the clipping above are from the Ottawa Citizen. The Ottawa Journal did not give the draft as much attention but it was more detailed in its reports when it did. It did explain that the initial pool of players numbered 17 but more were added later to come to a total of 28, or seven per club. I count eight for Ottawa but that's a mystery for another day.

"REDBLACKS acquire rights to Nick Arbuckle in deal with Stampeders"

This is an interesting move. You rarely see a team acquire a player a few weeks before he hits free agency.

The Ottawa REDBLACKS have acquired quarterback Nick Arbuckle from the Calgary Stampeders in exchange for Ottawa’s third-round pick in this year’s CFL Draft.  

The Stampeders will also receive a conditional draft selection if Arbuckle, a pending free agent, signs with Ottawa.  

The 26-year old Arbuckle impressed in his second year in the CFL in 2019 after taking over for an injured Bo Levi Mitchell. The Georgia State product finished the season having completed 191 passes for 2,247 yards and 12 touchdowns.

So now it's just a matter of signing him. It's kind of an important step but it shouldn't surprise anyone if there was some sort of framework in place on a deal already. Calgary was well aware that Arbuckle intended to seek a starting role somewhere so they'd have no objection to Ottawa talking to him (and his agent) in order to get something for a player they were near-certain to lose anyway.

I do question the necessity of the move a little bit. To achieve his goal of being a regular starter in 2020, Arbuckle did not have many options besides Ottawa. Only Toronto and perhaps Winnipeg might be looking for such a player. Every other team pretty much has its starter firmly in place.

So Ottawa essentially gives up a 3rd round pick to get a head start on Toronto in negotiations with Arbuckle. Arbuckle's former QB coach in Calgary is now the head coach in Toronto so maybe that isn't a bad idea.

What kind of production has that pick produced in the past? Let's check that out.

FB Gabe Polan
OL Andrew Pickett
DE Eli Ankou
DT Mehdi Abdesmad
DE Nigel Romick

Wow. Romick is the only one to provide any sort of production on that list. Pickett and Polan still could, mind you.

Ankou and Abdesmad were gambles based on interest they received from the NFL. So burning this third round pick on a free-agent-to-be is just a different kind of gamble, at worst.

Early reaction to the move seems good. After a year that was difficult from beginning to end, that alone is value for the pick.

So What Happened Before 1927?

Any reference I've ever seen to city high school football championships has only listed winners as far back as 1927. The graphic below, lifted from a 1943 Ottawa Citizen, serves as a good example.

For a number of years, nearly every article about the high school football championship winner would include an updated version of that list. But the list never began before 1927.

For years I assumed that high school football prior to 1927 was being played, but only as exhibition games and not in any organized, regularly-scheduled fashion. In other words, a champion only began being crowned "officially" in 1927.

So with a little time on my hands after Christmas Eve supper, I thought I'd take the time to check and...That's not the case at all.

A four-team league ran in 1926 and a champion was indeed crowned. It was Ottawa College, but it is actually only recognized, that I could find, in a game between two other teams near the end of the regular season. Read on.

I was unable to find a recap of the Ottawa College/Lisgar game. So I wonder if no champion being named is a simple matter of research failing to uncover one.

Adding to the confusion somewhat, years ago at a Gee-Gees game, I bought a records and facts book about the team. It was quite good but, by the writer's own admission, incomplete.

I bring this up because that book stated that Ottawa U. did not even field a club in the late 1910s and early 20s. It claimed that the school only resumed playing football in 1927 after being absent from the gridiron for several years. True enough, it did have a team in the Junior City League in 1927 but if "Ottawa College" refers to some other institution in 1926, I don't know who it could be.

Here are the nearly final standing from 1926. Presumably Ottawa College defeated Lisgar and nailed down an undefeated season.

2020 RedBlacks Coaching Staff Updates

I'm old enough to remember when people said we wouldn't be able to get quality coaches/players to come Ottawa because GM Marcel Desjardins has no people skills and is only working on a one-year deal.

With the most qualified head coach candidate secured, and that coach already building a quality staff, I think it's safe to say that those fears are unfounded. Let's catch up on how this coaching staff is shaping up so far.

Paul Lapolice: "We are excited to bring Mike on board as our defensive coordinator. Mike has been a successful assistant coach as well as a Head Coach in our league. He has a vast background in CFL football and his input will be very valuable to our staff and our players. Our players will also enjoy working with him on a daily basis."

 “I’ve known Mike for a long time. We’ve kind of grown up in the business together. We’re on the same page on a lot of things. Making sure we had experienced co-ordinators is part of the course in the Canadian Football League. We were excited to get Bob Dyce. He’s going to help me through the process. He knows the building, he knows the players and he’s well-respected. Bringing in Mike, who’s been a head coach and defensive co-ordinator and has been successful, it’s another person who has experience. You want to surround yourself with the best people possible."

Mike Benevides: “We want to be a group that’s going to be physical and fast and aggressive and well taught. But the vision has started way before today. It didn’t go the way they wanted (in 2019). Marcel and the group have been working hard at it and Paul’s been on the job for a while now. It was an off year. Now we have an opportunity to do things to improve it. There’s a ton of work ahead of us, but that’s OK. If you do anything in life, whether it’s football or something else, there’s always a lot to get done. You get excited about it, roll up your sleeves and get at it.”

Here are the most recent recent highlights of Benevides' career.

He...began a four-season stint as the (BC) Lions’ defensive coordinator and linebackers coach in 2008 and after winning his 3rd Grey Cup in 2011, he was promoted to head coach.  In 2012, Benevides guided the Lions to a first place finish in the west with a 13-5 regular season record and in his three-seasons at the helm, the Lions were a combined 33-21.  Benevides moved-on to the Edmonton Eskimos in 2016 as the team’s assistant head coach and defensive coordinator and in his 3rd and final season with Edmonton, he also assumed the role of linebackers coach.

Benevides' appointment is, of course, in addition to retaining Bob Dyce as special teams coach and hiring Bob Wylie to coach the offensive line.

Paul LaPolice: "We’re ecstatic to have Bob Dyce back for a fifth year with the club. I’ve known and respected Bob for many years. He’s an excellent Special Teams Coordinator, he’s got a good feel for this organization and he’s beloved by his players. We think Bob will continue to play a key role in the success of this team going forward. We worked together in 2003 in Winnipeg, Bob’s first year in the CFL, and we have been friends ever since." 

Dyce has had great success in the Canadian Football League over the years. The Winnipeg native won his first Grey Cup while with Saskatchewan in 2013 and became a champion once again with the REDBLACKS in 2016.

It's crazy to think that Dyce has already been with the team four years. Prior to his involvement, it seemed like there was at least one big return given up every game and a quality punt or kickoff return was more rare than a humble Saskatchewan fan. I don't miss those days.

Paul LaPolice: "We’re also very excited to have Bob Wylie as our Offensive Line Coach. This will be the third time that we have the opportunity to work together, so he already knows what we want to do to protect our quarterbacks and how we will run the ball. He’s an unbelievable teacher of men and he will create a great atmosphere in the offensive line room.  Our players will love the experience of working with coach Wylie."

Wylie's resume is a lengthy one indeed. Here's how it is summarized in the press release.

Bob Wylie, arrives in Ottawa with decades of experience at the college and professional football levels in the US and Canada. Wylie has worked for six Division I schools, two CFL teams and eight NFL organizations. Most recently, the Rhode Island native was the O-Line coach for the Cleveland Browns in 2017-2018 after serving in the same role with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 2014-2016.

His Wikipedia page connects his stops with the success of his former players.

Saskatchewan (2009):  Under his coaching center Jeremy O'Day, and guard Gene Makowsky were named CFL All-Stars. 

Winnipeg 2014 - 2016: Under his coaching, guard Travis Bond was named a CFL All-Star as well as an All-Division selection.

The interesting part of that is that while O'Day and Makowsky had been honoured multiple times in the past, that was Bond's only season in which he was so decorated. he's a free agent in February and I wonder if he wouldn't want to reunite with his old coach.

The Lost High School Championship

I came across something of an oddity while filling gaps in my high school football page earlier today.

In 1971, the Rideau Rams defeated St. Patrick 10-07 for the senior high school football crown. The recap of that game makes reference to the Ottawa High Schools Athletic Association (or OHSAA). So far so good.

Then in 1972, the Carleton school board fielded a competitive football league at the senior level.  A recap of St. Pius' win over Merivale in the final claimed that it was the first such game.

By all accounts at least some of the team (St. Pius for certain, as they were said to be winless the season before) had been playing for some time but I believe that was at the intermediate level (17 and under). They were now working under a junior/senior system so on that basis, this was indeed the first senior championship for the school board. Okay, fair enough, we've got that ironed out.

St. Pius would continue to roll in 1973. They knocked off Merivale again in the Carleton board finals then met the OHSAA champ Hillcrest and defeated them 33-07. This was the first time that champions from both school boards would meet head-to-head to determine a city champion.

St. Pius' Dave Behm, uncredited photo from the Nov. 10th, 1973, Ottawa Journal

All right, so that all makes sense, except...What happened to the OHSAA in 1972? Any record I find of past high school champions names only St. Pius. Why is the first-ever Carleton board champion St. Pius team generally regarded as the city champion if the two boards didn't play head-to-head until 1973? Why is there no OHSAA title recognized?

There was indeed an OHSAA champion. In fact, there were two.

The second was in 1954. Milton is making it sound like it happens every other day but at this point it hadn't happened in nearly 20 years. They first met in 1952 and their last meeting prior to this one was in 1959.

So while St. Pius is generally recognized as the 1972 high school champions, they are actually one of three champions that year. Rather than recognize St. Pat's and Fisher Park as co-champions, it appears as though history has deemed that a true OHSAA champion was never named. That's actually not the case so I'll add that championship for both teams on the High School page above.

Fisher Park would secure another title in 1977. That shared championship in 1972 would be St. Patrick's last so it really should be recognized.

“I’m Happy As Hell To Be Here”

Initially made public on Saturday night, Paul lapolice's hiring as RedBlacks head coach was made official earlier today. Here are a number of quotes from the press conference.

Marcel Desjardins: “This is a great day for the REDBLACKS. We conducted a thorough process in coming to a decision as to who our head coach was going to be. We started it by talking to a number of our key players and leaders to just get a sense of what they were looking for in a head coach. 

“The main three criteria for them was to have a coach that was a very good communicator, who was going to build a solid staff and also somebody who had a passion and a will to win but also to prepare to win. Those were things that were very important to them so I thank them for that.” 

“We’re excited as a group to have new ideas come in; to have a new vision from what we’ve been doing from a coaching perspective. Off the field in terms of how we prepare from an offensive standpoint, those are things that we’re in line with in terms of how we go about that process.” 

“It was a combination of maybe what some of the people were lacking that he had, plus, the fact he was an offensive guy and could run our offence at a high level – we just felt this was the best option. He’s all about teaching and communicating. When your players are telling you they want a guy who’s communicating, that says something. Paul’s all about that. That stuff, plus his vision, was a good fit for us.” 

“At the end of the day, Paul was by far the best candidate for us. There are a lot of good people in this league that all deserve a chance to be head coach of a CFL franchise. But, for us, Paul was the best choice. We’re excited as a group to have new ideas to come in, to have a different vision from what we’ve  been doing from a coaching perspective.”

Photo by Scott Grant, Image Communications

Paul LaPolice: “I’m happy as hell to be here,” said LaPolice, who had been the Winnipeg Blue Bombers offensive co-ordinator since 2016 and was the team’s head coach from 2010-12. “I’m humbled and honoured to be the head coach of the Redblacks, to be in this community.” 

"I don't have any grand aspirations or bold statements to say. I will say this, we will leave no stone unturned in our game planning, our preparation and our willingness to work on a daily basis to put us in a position to win championships. I expect our team to play fast, to play physical and have fun on a daily basis and always worry about our process, not the end result." 

"I'm a better football coach as I've had more experiences and been around other people and been in other organizations. Four years in one organization to take notes on this is how you would do this and see situations and how I would handle things differently." 

"It's important to have conversations about how we do things and how our processes are and then you look at the big picture. We made sure we communicated and made sure we were on the same page, as much as you can be. I heard a lot of good things about Marcel." 

“You can’t win games when you’re minus-17 in turnovers. We have to take the ball away better defensively and protect the ball better offensively. We just have to make sure we do things winning teams do: Protect the football, take it away, put points on the board, prevent explosive plays. I don’t think winning or losing football games is one thing. If you want one thing, we have to play intelligent, smart CFL football. We have to start teaching our players how to do that.” 

“To the fans, I want to say, let’s make sure we make this the loudest place in the east. Let’s start making crowd noise important to us so when somebody comes into our house, it’ll make it even more difficult for them."

Here's a look at LaPolice's coaching history:

2000–2001 Toronto Argonauts (QB/RC/RB) 

2002–2003 Winnipeg Blue Bombers (OC/RC/RBC) 

2004–2005 Hamilton Tiger-Cats (RC) 

2006      Toronto Argonauts (RC) 

2007      Saskatchewan Roughriders (RC) 

2008–2009 Saskatchewan Roughriders (OC) 

2010–2012 Winnipeg Blue Bombers (HC) 

2016–2019 Winnipeg Blue Bombers (OC)

His record as a head coach is not particularly good (16-28), but it does include a Grey Cup appearance off a 10-8 regular season. I don't know the whole story but the disclaimer that I come across most often is to the effect that he was not properly supported by the front office.

Whatever. To be honest, I was fed up with Rick Campbell, the team's all-too-often awful home performance, fourth quarter collapses and baffling in-game decisions. Bring on the fresh start.