Two CFL cities, Toronto and Ottawa, are on the outside looking in during this year’s Grey Cup playoffs. But that does not stop fans from remembering some of the special and sometimes legendary games that these CFL cities and their franchises have provided during playoffs past.
One legendary incident was the 1969 CFL eastern final between the Toronto Argonauts and the Ottawa Roughriders.
At that time, the Argonauts were coached by Leo Cahill, perhaps the most colorful and extroverted coach in Argonaut history.
During most of the 1960s, Toronto was the doormat of the east; the two strongest teams were usually Hamilton and Ottawa. The Argonauts were in the midst of a long losing streak. They had not won the Grey Cup since 1952, 17 years ago.
Cahill had took over the Argonauts in 1967 and immediately made the team into a genuine contender.
In 1969, the Argonauts had so improved that they disposed of the hated Tiger-Cats in the eastern semi-final and now were two games away from qualifying for the Grey Cup – in 1969, the eastern final was a two-game, total points affair.
Barring the Argonauts’ way were the Ottawa Roughriders, led by maybe the greatest Canadian quarterback in CFL history, Russ Jackson.
Jackson was a quarterback in the Joe Montana mold, the kind of quarterback who can dominate a game, the kind of quarterback who regularly pulled out last second victories, the kind of quarterback that you never bet against no matter how great the odds, no matter how dark things seem.
Even after Cahill took over the Argonauts, they continued to have a hideous record against Jackson’s Roughriders, 1-10-1.
But Cahill was confident and prepared his team well for the first game in Toronto. They dominated the game and won it 22-14, a score that could easily have been worse for the Roughriders.
After the game, Cahill was so confident that he added a new opponent to the Roughriders’ arsenal: God himself. Asked about his team’s chances in the return match in Ottawa next week, Cahill declared that only “an act of God” could stop the Argonauts from appearing in the Grey Cup.
Obviously Leo was so impressed by his team’s performance that he was not worried about any repercussions: not even a team that had regularly defeated him, nor the added danger of possible divine intervention, could make him retract his confident prediction.
Meanwhile up in Heaven, God decided to suspend His usual activities of judging newly arrived souls to weigh in on a CFL Eastern Final Game.
So far as it has been humanly reported and deciphered, it may be said that God found Cahill and the Argonauts presumptuous and the Rough Riders less sinful.
He showed His hand by sending cold weather to Ottawa during the following week, freezing the Landsdowne Park field to nearly rock-hard ice.
When the Argonauts showed up a week later, they were wearing their usual football cleats while the Roughriders wore special shoes to meet the changed conditions.
Ottawa easily won the game 32-3 and the two game total point series 46-25. God showed that He was not to be bet against.
But God was not done with the Argonauts and Cahill yet. In the Grey Cup two years later, it was obviously God who created a slippery spot that caused Leon McQuay to fumble and lose the Cup. And after one more year, after a dismal season, Cahill was fired.
It was only in 1983 that God finally relented and showed mercy, letting the Argonauts win the Cup again after a 31-year gap.
The 1969 Eastern Final had lasting repercussions. To this day, no coach or CFL team or organization has dared God to play against them in a CFL football game, being satisfied that mortal opponents were enough to handle at one time.
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