A Brief History of Football in Canada

1823 was a year that would pass into infamy. William Web Ellis was playing a typical soccer match on his school field when, feeling bored and deeply frustrated, he picked up the ball and ran. Seeing this, his school chums chased after him and tackled him into the mud amid hoots and raucous laughter. His mischief soon turned into an accepted variation which turned into a whole new sport. Rules were developed to accommodate the new style of play called “Rugby football.”

As the graduates of Rugby spread throughout the empire, they took their game with them. In the 1870s, a hybrid form of Rugby became popular in Montreal among the local garrison and students at McGill University. In 1874, a key year in this story, McGill was invited to play a game of “football” with Harvard University. Upon arrival, both teams were surprised to learn that they understood “football” differently, with the Harvard squad playing the kicking version, and McGill playing rugby football. They resolved to play two games, one under the McGill rules and another under Harvard’s rules. The rugby game was a hit with Harvard, and they immediately persuaded the other Ivy League schools to take it on.

On both sides of the border, Canadian and American clubs began adapting the game to their fancy. They mixed and swapped rules as they played each other, incorporating what they liked and learning from each other. The Americans began to develop quickly in the 1800s, making the game more recognizable to the football we see today. In 1905, Canada caught up with the publication of the Burnside Rules, put out by the Ontario Rugby Football Union. They dictated 12 men per side, the “snap back” from the scrimmage line to begin play, and the requirement to make 10 yards in 3 downs or turn over possession. Surprisingly, the forward pass was not allowed until 1931.

In 1909, Lord Earl Grey, having already left his mark on the world of tea, further immortalized his name with a new trophy. Lord Grey’s Cup was to be awarded annually to the champion football team in Canada, and it has been a Canadian institution ever since. As the game developed in popularity across Canada, it came to be praised as a symbol of national unity. In 1962, Parliament decreed that all Canadian television should air the game to make it available to viewers in every region.

I want to close by sharing a description of one play that captures why the CFL is great fun to watch. This play happened on July 1, 2012, in the Argos vs. Eskimos game in Edmonton. With 2:45 on the clock in the second quarter, the Toronto center snaps the ball to #15 Ricky Ray, QB for the Argos. Ricky drops back as his receivers sprint their routes; his eyes scan the field for a split second; he sees #2 Chad Owens open and throws a bullet pass, which is so low that Owens actually to has catch the ball and roll on the ground. Owens picks himself up in a hornet’s nest of four defensive backs and begins to sprint toward the Argos endzone. He jukes left around one defender, evades another, stuffs his tattooed arm in the face of a third, and runs all the way to the 5-yard line, finally pushed out of bounds by a desperate Eskimos defender. It was a brilliant display of speed and athleticism (1). For a full season of such performance, Chad Owens was named the league’s Most Outstanding Player this past week.

Chad Owens in action against the Edmonton Eskimos
(Photo Courtesy of Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press)

Tomorrow, the Argonauts crew goes into battle against the Calgary Stampeders in the 100^th Grey Cup game (2). I invite all readers to join me in celebrating this great Canadian tradition!

(1) You can watch the above play on the CFL website. Fast forward to 02:32.

http://www.cfl.ca/video/index/id/75417

(2) The Grey Cup was not played from 1916-18 because of World War I, and a dispute over rules cancelled the game in 1919.
Source Consulted: The Canadian Encyclopedia - "Football," "The Grey Cup"
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com

Remembrance Day in Retrospect

 Remembrance is important – that’s no topic of debate. The real question these days is how we remember, and if the white poppy campaign is any evidence, that question is far from settled. What kind of words should we use on Remembrance Day? Should we emphasize honor, heroism, and bravery, or tragedy, loss, and devastation? I’d like to focus here on WWI, as it began the remembrance tradition and stands as the first overseas crucible in Canada’s young history. I want to suggest that our remembrance should look on WWI with two lenses: epic and tragedy. Like a pair of glasses, we need both of these lenses to see the war’s meaning in the Canadian memory.

First, the epic lens. In literature, an epic has several qualities: it’s a serious narrative, it has a grand scale, and the plot centers on great acts in battle. With these, the epic also narrates the birth of a nation, which is especially important for our discussion here. When Lieutenant Gregory Clark went over the top in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, he surveyed the scene before him:

As far as I could see, south, north

along the miles of the Ridge, there were

the Canadians. And I experienced my

first full sense of nationhood.

Clark was not alone in his feeling. Both on the day of battle and in the countless remembrance ceremonies afterward, everyone agreed: Canada came of age at Vimy Ridge.

When Canada entered the war with Great Britain, it was a young country of 8 million, where the English speakers thought of themselves as British first and Canadian second. The quality of Canadian troops was in open doubt. In one infamous event, when the movie tent at their training camp showed the same film twice, one incensed soldier said “Right lads, let’s burn it down” – and they did. By the war’s end, however, a combination of savvy leadership, esprit de corps, and creativity had transformed them into an elite fighting unit. As a lasting testimony to its arrival on the world stage, Canada signed the armistice for itself on November 11, equal to Britain and France.

Now, if we only look at WWI as the Canadian epic, we could give a stirring Remembrance Day speech, but we would lose touch with reality. We need to balance our perspective by also seeing the war as a tragedy. In literature, tragedy presents a hero’s progression from happiness to misery, brought on by his tragic flaw. And the important thing is that the hero’s suffering is totally disproportionate to his flaw. In 1914, the tragic flaw that swept Europe was a lethal concoction of militarism and nationalism. The general feeling was well described by Pierre Berton: “war was all dash and color, evoking words like ‘gallantry,’ ‘courage,’ and ‘daring.’ War was men in brilliant costumes galloping about on splendid horses. War was an arm temporarily in a sling.” Now imagine the experience of the Canadians, most of them teenagers, when they were shocked into the reality of war in the trenches of France and Belgium. Of the 420,000 Canadian men in uniform, 60,000 died. And every single death sent waves through a network of human relationships.

The Brooding Soldier - St. Julien, Belgium

As Canadians, we need to see WWI with double vision. It’s a historical fact that the war lifted Canada to prominence on the world stage. For a young nation without any military history, the epic story of Vimy Ridge unified Canada with national pride. Moreover, the story met the human need for meaning in the face of suffering. At the same time, the tragic story brings us to reckon with the human cost. War is horrible, full stop. We must not celebrate Victoria Cross stories alone – we need to remember what war does to people, lest we ever pursue it recklessly.

What's the Use of Reading?

        It usually hits you around grade 10. You're sitting in English class listening to one of your peers struggle to read a speech from Macbeth when ask yourself “Why do I care about any of this?” In the golden days of grade school, story time was one of the highlights of class (remember The Hobbit?). But now, some practical gland has kicked in, and you seriously suspect that ‘high art’ might be a big waste of your time.

        In spite of (or perhaps because of) receiving two literature degrees myself, I continued in such a mindset until recently. I’m happy to say that, today, I have a maturing perspective on literature, and I’m much indebted to a great Canadian scholar for bringing me to this point. Northrop Frye (1912-1991) was a professor at the University of Toronto, and to this day he is considered one of the most important authorities on literature. In my tour of all things Canadian, I picked up his book “The Educated Imagination.” I read much and understood little, so I’m hoping that this entry will help me to process the main ideas.

        I want to tentatively suggest that there are two main concepts in Frye’s book. First, we use our imaginations way more than we give credit. We live in two worlds: the day-to-day world of ordinary experience, and the world of potential. In the first world, we use the ordinary language of practical sense. We go to the bank, buy groceries, and interact with coworkers. In the second world, we speak the language of imagination. Not everyone is a poet, but most of us can identify with this thought: “I see the world as it is, and I can imagine things differently.” When artists write, the imagination either looks up to a world better than our own (think of the happy endings in Cinderella and Pride and Prejudice), or it looks down to a world worse than our own (think of Resident Evil and Hamlet). In Frye’s words, “Literature gives us an experience that stretches us vertically to the heights and depths of what the human mind can conceive” (61).

        So the first point is that all of us use our imagination all the time, and artists have the gift of crafting it into words. The second point is that we need our imagination, not only because it’s part of what makes us human, but also because it strengthens the values we need to strive for something better than the world around us. Think of The Avengers when Ironman sacrificed his life to destroy the bomb. Think of the soldier’s compassion and bravery in Saving Private Ryan. Think of the beauty of friendship in The Lord of the Rings. And when you walked out of Avatar, you wanted to hug a tree, didn’t you?

Statue of Northrop Frye, Victoria College at UofT

        I think what Frye wants us to see is that literature puts us in touch with our humanity. It operates in the human world of love and death, joy and pity, bravery and jealousy. When we read great works of literature, we can see part of who we are, and we look beyond ourselves into other possibilities of human experience. Among other virtues, reading widely and deeply must lead to tolerance – a great Canadian value if ever there was one.