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This is the way it used to be, you know.
The Ottawa REDBLACKS and the Hamilton Ticats are basically at halftime of a 120 minute game to determine who is tops in the CFL East. This two-game, total points series for first is a throwback to the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, and even the 80’s – when teams played out the same scenario to see who would advance in the playoffs.
It’s a modern day anomaly that is fuel for a stroll down memory lane, one that has you stumbling upon what would be considered outrageous scenarios today. (When you start researching CFL playoff history you find some wild stuff. For instance, in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, the Western Semi-Final was a two-game, total points affair. The winner would advance to the Western Final to take on the first place finisher in a – wait for it – best of three series. On a few occasions, the semi-final winner wound up playing five playoff games in 15 days. What?!)
Rocky DiPietro and Chuck Ealey each saw two-game, total points series’ once in their playing careers with Hamilton. Russ Jackson saw them over and over again during his days with the Ottawa Rough Riders. Ealey and DiPietro won in their brushes with the fabled two-gamer. Jackson was on both sides of the equation. All three can deliver the same messages, though: It ain’t over ’til it’s over and you can’t let it get personal.
“I thought it was good,” said Jackson of the format that decided the Eastern Final champ throughout his career. “I enjoyed it.”
“Fortunately for us, because we did lose the first one, it was a good deal,” chuckled Ealey, who led the Ticats back against the Ottawa Rough Riders in the 1972 Eastern Final.
Russ Jackson of the Ottawa Rough Riders throws a pass against the Argos on Nov. 23, 1969.
“Personally, I didn’t like it,” said DiPietro, of the 1986 edition. “It’s tough playing two games, back to back, against the same team.” DiPietro was answering the question based on how he felt before the games were played, by the way. Give him the benefit of retrospection and I’m sure he sees it in a kinder way, considering his Ticats erased a 26 point deficit to win that Eastern Final.
The REDBLACKS and Ticats are providing the CFL’s younger fans with a snapshot into the league’s past as the 2015 regular season closes. With Hamilton losing at home to Ottawa last Sunday, 12-6, first place is up for grabs, through happenstance and fortunate scheduling. No one would have predicted, at the beginning of the season, that these two would be playing a two-game, total points series to decide first place.
Yet, here we are, with Hamilton needing to win by at least six points (they’d win on their overall record against the East as an entirety if the aggregate score winds up even) in order to secure first and direct passage to the Eastern Final on Nov. 22.
DiPietro was in the stands last Sunday when the REDBLACKS drew first blood. “It was pretty intense,” the hall of fame receiver said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
“They’ve got a little to overcome now but sometimes that’s good,” DiPietro said of his old team. “Hopefully, Ottawa’s a little overconfident. They’re up, they’re going back home, they may be feeling a little more relaxed, who knows?”
DiPietro knows from experience that the underdog in the second game can accomplish the comeback, even after a home loss. His Ticats rebounded from what looked like certain disaster in the 1986 Eastern Final.
I happened to be in the stands at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto when DiPietro and the Ticats roared back against the Argos after losing the first game 31-17, and then falling behind in the second 15-3. Hamilton won that second game 42-25 and took the set by a total of 59-56. (Only two teams made the playoffs in the East that year. It had been decided that if the third place team in one division had a worse record than the fourth place team in the other, the fourth place team would make the playoffs in their own division. The crossover format that we know now didn’t come into effect until 1996).
“They may have gotten overconfident,” DiPietro said of the Argos as he reminisced about the big turnaround “They may have thought they had it in the bag and by the time they looked around it was too late.”
He’s not the only Ticat who can boost his former team with a tale of bouncing back. Ealey, the CFL’s Rookie of the Year in 1972, could not muster a whole lot in game one of that year’s Eastern Final. The Ottawa Rough Riders had marched to a 19-7 win, but Ealey led Hamilton to a 23-8 home victory in game two.
“We knew that we could’ve played a lot better than we did and we were very confident that we could come back,” said Ealey, who led the Ticats to a Grey Cup Championship that year. “How lucky we were to have two games.”
Like DiPietro, Jackson was in the stands last Sunday at The Tim. “Unbelievable,” was his response when asked about the meteoric rise of the REDBLACKS. The Hall of Fame quarterback, who recently underwent surgery on his left knee, can’t make it to Ottawa for Saturday’s game – “I can imagine this weekend, it’s gonna be something unbelievable,” he said – but is hopeful he’ll be mobile enough to be there when Ottawa hosts its first playoff game since 1983, be it the Eastern Semi or Final.
Jackson knows the joy of the two-game comeback, having led the Rough Riders over the Argos in the famous “Act of God” game in 1969. That year, the Argos won the opener and their coach, Leo Cahill, famously claimed that only an act of God could see his team defeated.
God, however, likely had less to do with it than broomball shoes did.
“We wore broomball shoes and that made quite a difference,” Jackson said, recalling that the field was icy that day. “We had practised with broomball shoes during the week and they proved very successful.” The Rough Riders blasted the Argos, 32-3, on the way to a Grey Cup victory.
Jackson saw a wrinkle or two in his day and in that there might be some advice for the Ticats and REDBLACKS as they get set for game two: Do something surprising.
“The Tiger-Cats came in one year and they had the Lonely Faloney,” he said, referring to Hamilton quarterback Bernie Faloney and a strategy that would have been outlandish at the time. “It was really like what they’re doing today. They had six receivers out and nobody in the backfield with him. And they wailed us, they took us to the cleaners that particular game.”
Mr. Jackson has a good memory. In game one of the 1963 Eastern Final, Faloney and the Ticats ripped the Rough Riders 45-0. The Riders rebounded for a game two victory but still lost the Grey Cup berth on total score.
What may be the most important piece of advice for the Ticats and REDBLACKS, as they head for game two, is that as intense as game one was, you’d better not let your emotions get the best of you.
“It wasn’t a matter of hating the other guy,” said Ealey when asked about bad blood surging from game one to game two. “I don’t think it was anything nasty, from my perspective. What I remember, is that I was just more driven by the fact that to get the Grey Cup you had to win these two games.”
“It never got to the point of getting out of control or anything like that,” said Jackson, who added that he expects these same two teams to be battling for a Grey Cup berth.
“Unless the Argos come up big, it looks like Ottawa and Hamilton will be playing in that East final,” he said. “But, you know, strange things can happen.”
They sure can. Like a two-game, total points series for first place.
