Eight teams. Eight proud histories. But in the end there can be only one. We’re searching for Canada’s greatest football program. And your vote will help decide the winner.
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QUEEN’S
When you can say a football team first suited up in 1882, won its first Dominion championship in 1893 and at one point featured stars with names like “Pep” Leadlay and “Chick” Mundell, it’d usually be safe to assume that any argument about its greatness would be washed scalp-to-soles in the sepia tinge of history.
All of these things are true of Queen’s football.
Students at the Kingston, Ont., university were introduced to an early incarnation of the sport by Fred and Jackson Booth in 1882, then became Canadian Rugby Union champions the following decade. Led by Leadlay, the program responded to a few fallow years during and just after the First World War with three straight Grey Cup wins in 1922, ’23 and ’24 (making them one of only two CIS teams to take the CFL’s top prize).
At their peak in ’23, they went undefeated on the season and outscored the Regina Roughriders 54-0 in the final (a Grey Cup record for margin of victory), and in total across all three Cup wins they stomped their opponents 78-4.
So, yes, there’s a good dose of nostalgia in the argument for Queen’s as the greatest program in CIS history. But it’s not like the Gaels faded into irrelevancy after turning their attention away from Earl Grey’s hardware – far from it.
Instead, they won Vanier Cups in 1968, ’78, ’92 and 2009 – the only team on this list to take the Cup in four different decades. Key contributors to the first shaky steps football took in this country, the Gaels’ true greatness resides in the astounding sustained success of the program.
For a sense of the sheer scale of that success, just take a look at the numbers. The Gaels’ .563 winning percentage may not seem overly impressive divorced from context and stacked against Laval’s .752. But Laval’s record stretches back just 17 seasons.
The Gaels have been playing winning football for 131 years, their record established over more than 800 games. In that time, they’ve won 30 conference titles – tops on this list even though it doesn’t include a pair of Ontario Rugby Football Union wins in the 1890s – and produced six players who went on to the NFL and 206 CFLers.
Pick any point in the history of football in Canada and you’ll find Queen’s there, winning games and titles and churning out top-level talent. That’s the mark of a truly great program. Queen’s has one. It’s not sepia – it’s splashed in red, yellow and blue.
– Evan Rosser
GAELS BY THE NUMBERS:
Vanier Cup wins: 4
Vanier Cup appearances: 5
Conference titles: 30 (23 Yates, 7 Dunsmore)
CIS MOPs: 3
NFL players produced: 6
CFL players produced: 206
All-time winning percentage: .563
MANITOBA
It’s not a moment anyone wants to relive – though the day around it remains one to remember.
With his Manitoba Bisons down 7-3 to St. Mary’s University in the first quarter of the 2007 Vanier Cup, running back Matt Henry took a handoff from quarterback John Makie and slashed 29 yards for a first down. On the tackle, though, Henry’s leg flopped unnaturally in the air as he fell to his back.
“If you’re a little bit squeamish you might… wanna turn away from this one,” play-by-play announcer Tim Micallef said over the replay.
Henry had broken his right femur and was done for the day.
The Manitoba football program has taken its share of lumps since taking the field for the first time in 1920, even suspending play between 1948 and 1962. But like the American bison they’re named for – a species driven nearly to extinction in the 1800s – these Bisons are survivors.
That 2007 team rallied for a 28-14 victory in honour of Henry, their fallen friend and leading rusher, capping a perfect 12-0 season and securing the school’s third national title and first in more than 30 years. During one of the most dominant playoff runs in CIS history, Manitoba outscored its opponents 155-44 and its fearsome defence forced seven turnovers per game.
One of the most successful schools in the early years of the Vanier Cup, Manitoba took the trophy in 1969 and 1970, becoming the first team to win it back-to-back. In the years since, only three other schools have managed the feat.
And the Bisons have produced more than just wins.
When Brandon native Israel Idonije first arrived on campus in Winnipeg, he’d played just a single year of football. But after his years in black and gold, he managed to make the Chicago Bears in 2004 as an undrafted free agent, carving out a role at defensive tackle and end, and on special teams. The current Detroit Lion led the NFL in block punts and field goals from 2005-07.
And for his part, Henry returned to the field for the Bisons the year after his devastating Vanier Cup injury, rushing for 654 yards – slightly more than he’d amassed in 2007.
“We were all afraid it might be the end of the road. There was no way of knowing for certain whether or not he would be OK,” head coach Brian Dobie said afterward. “”His response to the injury is really what defines him.”
In a way, it defines a whole program. Sure, many people see “going the way of the buffalo” as a bad thing, a move toward irrelevance or extinction. But in terms of these Bisons, most CIS football teams would consider themselves extremely lucky just to emulate the herd.
– Craig Battle
BISONS BY THE NUMBERS:
Vanier Cup wins: 3
Vanier Cup appearances: 4
Conference titles: 10
CIS MOPs: 0
NFL players produced: 1
CFL players produced: 80
All-time winning percentage: .456