Worst Grey Cup Run Ever

As part of my continuing effort to educate the masses on the history of the CFL, I bring you the next installment. You can read the first and second installment in the string titled "Best Grey Cups Ever". There are some exciting and memorable games, but of course these GCs pale in comparison to a run of Grey Cups held during the Great Depression. This astonishing series of games have been all but forgotten, mainly due to the pitiful series of events I shall now describe.

In 1927, with wheat farming all but taking a backseat to sheer survival, the Regina Roughriders decided to step up their football activity and make a run for the Grey Cup. Clubs from the far flung 'colonies' of Upper Canada were just starting to make themselves known. "What better way to establish ourselves as worthy members of the Federation than to take back to the Queen City this bandied trouphy of a Cup" chipped Morris Chrynyk, the then Owner of the Roughriders.

So in 1928 the Roughriders made the cut and faced the Tigers of Hamilton in the Grey Cup. The score was 30 to 0 for the cats who being up 24 to 0 at the end of the first quarter made use of the scrimmage time by playing their cheerleaders and some farmboys who happened to be sitting in the front row. The Roughriders were dejected, but perceviered....

And made the Grey Cup Game again in 1929 once more against the Tigers who just simply rested their players for an upcoming 'friendly' match against the Argonauts in two weeks and played the entire game their cheerleading squad and the year-older farmboys who had faired not-so-bad agaisnt the Riders the year before. The Tigers won again but the margin was closer, 14-3. The Roughriders left Hamilton again dejected.

But the strength of the Prairie Pioneer is never to be taken lightly and the Roughriders in 1930 again sat atop the west and put their Dukes up to take on the team from Balmy Beach, a mostly rag tag bunch of beach volleyball players and drunkards scraped up from the backalleys of London. The riders put up a good fight but the beachmen won 11-6. The train ride to Regina was a quiet one, save aside the muffled sobs.

It took some doing, but the Riders were again the team of destiny and in 1931 they thought this was their year as they met the Montreal AAA in the Grey Cup. The Quebecois of the Triple A had never played football before this game, it was a lark (excuse the pun) and the team consisted of mainly waiters from the Chateau Frontenac and a few of old french whores that were so ghastly in appearance they doubled finely for an offensive-defensive line. Regina lost 22 to 0.

Time to quit? Hardly! The Roughies made it again to the Grey Cup in '32 and meeting old enemies the Tigers of Hamilton there was great excitement in the air. The Tigers accepted a pre-game dare and played with their left arm inside their sweater and a patch over their right eye, but won the game anyways, 25 to 6. An interesting note to this game is that after 5 Grey Cup Games, the Roughriders finally scored a touchdown. An impressive 22 yard scamper by RB Wesley Munchhausen of Estevan. But needless to say the Roughies were p*ssed off royally.

So much so that in 1933 they entered the Grey Cup as a made-up team from Sarnia. Dennis Dowbrowsky, who had bought the team from the estate of Morris Chrynyk who had hanged himself after the loss to Montreal, thought that perhaps he could fool the Old Boy club into thinking that an Ontario rival was vying for the Cup. Against the team from Toronto the Sarnia Roughriders made ready to play. Unfortunately on Game day all awoke to a field of ice as Groundskeeper Willy (no kidding!) had been totally smashed the night before and left the watering system on all night in -10C weather. It looked like all was going to be called off when the games sponsor, Hucklebee's Dodge of Brampton, demanded some use of his advertising money and had a group of men run off to the local Canadian Tire to acquire soem hockey sticks and a puck. "We'll play any sport right now!" he quipped to the announcers and the game was switched to hockey and the team from Toronto beat the masqueraders 4 to 3. The Roughriders were not allowed to come home and had to spend the entire winter in Las Pas.

As if it wasn't bad enough, this trick to disguise themselves as a team from Sarnia made the good people of Sarnia so upset they made themselves their own football team and upon making it to the Grey Cup of 1934 soundly beat the Roughriders 20 to 12.

This has been your Roughrider history lesson of the day......

:P

WOW, do you have some extra time on your hands or what? Is work a little slow?

Very slow roughy, slow enough to research (and embellish) these little gems of history.

how old are you guys

good stories

25, why?

Hey R&W,

Where do you find this stuff? I would love to know more..

Dys...

Mostly in the scary corners of my imagination Dys, but the records are absolutely true, search for a Grey Cup history site and you'll see these scores and teams are real....

Red... you rock when you give it a try.

..good stories by Red and White

... wasn't there also a year the Roughies 'declined to play' ... 'cause the big/bad Easterners wanted to disallow certain 'imports'???

Yes, indeed threeman you are correct.....

It was the very next year, in 1935, the Saskatchewan Govt. had imported a displaced band of mongolian pillagers from outside of Ulan Bator. Their farming skills in a desert were second to none but after repeated raids on Moose Jaw the local law enforcement was at a loss as to how to contain them. That's when Herman Lewvan, a local entrepeneur and part owner of the Riders got a brainstorm. He hired the group to bolster the roughrider backfield and compeltely slaughtered the rest of the western teams, Edmonton, Calgary, North Battleford (they never reformed after a humiliating 184-0 loss) and Churchill. After the western semi-final it seems Ottawa couldn't abide with potentially losing the cup out of Ontario and immediately detained and deported the mongolian horde. Lewvan was so upset he yanked his team from the Cup. In their place a new team from Winnipeg was formed and after only four practices (one on the train ride east) they met the vaunted Tigers and won the Grey Cup 18-12. This so infuriated the Riders that they did not play well enough to make it to another Grey Cup until 1966, where they won their first Grey Cup!!!!!! Yay!!!!!! They were so happy the tide of optimism carried over to 1967 where they made a return visit to the Big Game and promptly lost to Hamilton (again).

Amazing and they beat Calgary every time?

...awesome stuff .. "RED" ... I went to the 66 Cup .. and met Frank Clair that weekend ... whatta guy ... my Dad wore the same hats as the "professor"

Hah hah hah riderpeg, thats a good one.

But if you studied your history correctly you'd know that the Riders and the Stampeders have never faced each other in the Grey Cup

Lets see, in the most recent times (say 20 years) Calgary's been to the GC six times and walked out victoriously three of those times, Saskatchewan been there twice and won once. Who's your Daddy riderpeg!?!?!