CFL Memories

I've been listening to a CFL podcast of late and was able to reconnect with an old friend, Joe Pritchard, who is one of the hosts of the podcast.
Joe and his fellow hosts have reignited my CFL interest and I'm having to re-learn the league's rosters again, but I'm having fun doing just that.

I was a pretty big CFL fan in the early 80's when we first had cable available and ESPN showed a lot of CFL games.
Somewhere in the archives, I still have a booklet that ESPN sent out upon request that explained the rules and a little history on each team.
During that period, I mainly rooted for the Ottawa Rough Riders, even though they were terrible because they had J.C. Watts as their quarterback (remember my Oklahoma fandom in the Barry Switzer days?) ,but I also rooted for a team in the same division as well- the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and when Watts retired, I rooted more for the Ti-Cats.
I've always spoken well of the league to others and tried to make a few fans by recommending its high-octane and fast-paced game.

ESPN gave up the CFL rights in the US and the rights through the years shuffled between several networks and currently is back with ESPN, who streams a lot of the games and shows a fair amount on the "over the air" stations until the fall and the college season begins,but my peak CFL interest was the middle 90's and early 2000's with this thing called the internet and a device long forgotten-WebTV.

WebTV was our first entry on the WWW and one of the neat things was discovering Usenet, which was a message board on about every topic you could dream of including the CFL and hosted chat rooms on tons of topics as well.
Those chat rooms most notably here are remembered by the lovely Cherie meeting what turned out to be her best friend, Christine in a homeschooling chat room in what Cherie says was the ONLY time she ever entered a chat room!
I didn't use the chat often, but I did spend lots of time on Usenet discussing the CFL and actually listening to the audio of live CFL games.
This was after the Baltimore franchise had moved to Montreal to become the "new" Alouettes after the CFL's American expansion, I had watched a lot of those games and was very knowledgeable about the league and wanted to "talk" with other fans.
I was arguably more of a CFL fan than an NFL fan then as Baltimore had stolen the Browns and then had no further use for their CFL Stallions and passionately rooted for the Tiger-Cats.

I was a Doug Flutie fan as almost everyone was, but I liked other passers as well such as Damon Allen, Tracy Ham and my favorite of all- Matt Dunigan.
I was happy when Dunigan joined Hamilton following his season with the defunct Birmingham Barracudas, but alas Dunigan would play just a few games with the Ti-Cats with his career ending due to concussion issues and just one football card in a Hamilton uniform,
Dunigan was a quarterback before his time with a strong arm, but at 5'11, Dunigan didn't even have an NFL opportunity.
Had he played today, he would have at least been drafted and given a chance and he might have been an NFL starter in today's game.

Hamilton became even more fun to follow in 1998 and 1999 under new head coach Ron Lancaster as they split a pair of Grey Cups with Calgary.
CFL veteran Danny McManus manned the quarterback position with hard running back Ronald Williams combining with receivers Darren Flutie and Mike Morreale to pace a strong offense, but the defense was the best part for me with rush end (basically the CFL's version of a 3-4 outside linebacker that rushes the passer) Joe Montford along with CFL veteran linebackers Calvin Tiggle and Lamar McGriggs with a punishing hitter in Canadian safety Rob Hitchcock to lead the defense to two Eastern titles.
Somewhere in the archives, I have an official 2000 Grey Cup Football from those teams and I should dig it out sometime.
The CFL football is a little different than the NFL ball, a little thicker around the middle makes it a stubbier looking ball that you really cannot tell unless it is side by side with another football.

Another Ti-Cat that I liked was electric wideout Earl Winfield, who I remembered at first from his college days at North Carolina and even though Winfield wasn't part of the Grey Cup title teams (Winfield retired a few years before), he still was my favorite player from the era of the 80's.
Winfield was one of those players that you didn't want to take your eyes off because when he touched the football, he had the potential to take it to the (larger) end zone.
I was able to meet Earl (Now a CFL Hall of Famer) a few years back when Winfield and I appeared on a local radio show and what a class gentleman he is!
I took a picture with Earl, had him sign some cards and a Hamilton mini helmet and it ranked right up at the top with the famous people that I've been able to meet.

The Tiger-Cats have a new stadium now and I still haven't kicked the habit of calling their home Ivor Wynne (the name of the old park), so it'll be a little different as I start to watch more CFL, but there will be quite a few players that I'll be familiar with and it won't take me long to get back to speed.

There is one more thing that I love about the CFL and that is the better than average chance of getting some snow football during the postseason.
And with only one of the league nine facilities being indoors after Toronto's recent return to the great outdoors, even the championship game has a reasonable chance of inclement weather.
I remember quite a few snow classics during my years watching the CFL.
1993's Western Final with Edmonton upsetting Doug Flutie and Calgary, 1994 with BC on a miracle run to the championship (BC won two road games and then the Grey Cup over the top three teams in the league by a total of five points) in pulling a massive upset again over Calgary and Flutie with a touchdown on the last play of the game that ranks as the best CFL game I've ever watched and 1996's Grey Cup at Ivor Wynne with Flutie and Toronto holding off Edmonton in the snow daddy of them all for me, to just name a few.
Snow football is just so much fun to watch and the CFL allows you to see many battles in the white stuff!





Hope you enjoyed some of my CFL memories, I have a CFL Forgotten Superstars entry planned in the future and maybe even something else perhaps as well, if time permits.
Back later with game two of the Cavaliers and the Warriors-hopefully some real referees show up for this one!