My apologies for posting this a second time (the first time was under the topic "My 5 most memorable plays"). This definitely is the game I would most like to see...
Here is my all time play. It happened on the second game of the two game total point Eastern final in 1962 between Hamilton and Toronto.
http://tinyurl.com/2fcmap
Game One was played on a crisp sunny day in CNE Stadium, and the Argos were "flawless", according to Ti-Cat coach Jim Trimble. They held the Tabbies to a single and an unconverted touchdown, while scoring three majors themselves, and adding a field goal and a single for good measure, to take the first game 25-7. They didn't even need to win Game Two - just not lose by more than 18 points.
But the much-vaunted shotgun formation which had gotten them this far would prove to be their undoing. Rather than utilise a solid running game, which would ultimately provide better ball control, they came out of the gate passing. From the opening kickoff, there was no one in the backfield to run the ball. The Ti-Cats didn't take long to figure out that the Argos were a one-trick pony, and easily broke down the Argo backfield. Amazingly, they were only ahead 3-0 at halftime; the Argos still led by 15 points with 30 minutes to go. By the end of the third quarter, however, that lead had evaporated to one point, as the Tabbies scored two touchdowns to lead 17-0.
Early in the fourth quarter, Don Sutherin kicked a field goal, and the collapse was complete; Hamilton 27, Toronto 25, with the Argos having been outscored 20-0 on the day. But they would collect themselves long enough to kick a 47-yard single with 7_ minutes to play, and another to tie the aggregate score at 27-27.
With just under two minutes remaining, and the Tiger-Cats scrimmaging on their own 25, Ti-Cat QB Bernie Faloney inexplicably decided to throw, rather than run the ball. It was intercepted by Argo DB Stan Wallace. The Argos had the ballon the Hamilton 27-yard line with 91 seconds on the clock. Despite being outscored 20-2, they merely had to kick the ball through the end zone to win the Eastern title.
However, they decided to run the clock down first. Rote ran a quarterback sneak on first down, but it was called back on an offside penalty. On first and fifteen from the 32, Rote called his own number again, gaining three yards. On second and seven, they tried a draw play, losing two yards. Annis Stukus would later write, "The only way a draw could possibly work is if the opposition suspected a pass, and not even Tobin Rote could take a chance on a pass then." With twenty-eight seconds on the clock, they were third and fourteen on the Hamilton 31-yard line. Dave Mann came into the game to kick the winning point. What happened next would forever change the Canadian game.
Normally that would be well within Mann's range - he had almost kicked the ball to the dead-ball line from the 35 earlier. Back then, CFL end zones were 25 yards, and there was no blocking allowed on punt returns. This meant the Tiger-Cats had virtually no chance of running it out of the end zone if the punt fell short, so Trimble sent Sutherin and Faloney - both kickers - deep into the end zone to try to punt the ball back out, given the chance. No one had punted a ball out of an end zone in fifty years!
The snap came back to Mann, and he promptly booted his worst punt of the day, shanking a wobbly 40-yarder. It still came down eight yards inside the end zone, where Sutherin, gathering it up, kicked it back out. It came down just past the 30-yard line, where - incredibly - Mann caught it again, hesitated, then stepped forward and punted it back toward the end zone. This time it landed on the goal line and bounced into the hands of Faloney, who immediately took off with it.
Weaving in and out of would-be Argo tacklers, he gained the first thirty yards, according to Jay Teitel, "...at a leisurely, hypnotic speed, so that as he moved up the field he seemed to be passing the same players twice and even three times. Even when he passed mid-field and there were no Argos left to weave around, he wove. It was one of the strangest runs ever made on a football field."
Faloney ran it back 111 yards to score the winning TD. Or so it seemed. It was called back as the Ti-Cats were flagged for illegal blocking on the return.
But the damage was done. The Argos lost whatever momentum they'd managed to build up, and in the ensuing 30-minute overtime, Hamilton scored four unanswered touchdowns, winning the game 48-2, and the series 55-27.