Football Classics: A pepperoni-and-cheese pizza slice of life

If the universe unfolds as it indeed should, and the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice, with apologies to Dr. King for context, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats should dispatch the Winnipeg Blue Bombers at McMahon Stadium in Calgary tomorrow. Kick-off is at 5 p.m. here in the central time zone.

The stage is set for the CFL’s 107th Grey Cup, which Hamilton last won in 1999 and Winnipeg in 1990.

With their franchise-best 15-3 record, the Ticats topped the CFL’s regular-season standing. The Ticats were also 2-0 this season against the Bombers. The Ticats are currently 3½-point favorites to win the Grey Cup.

Although the Bombers finished third in the West Division, they posted an 11-7 record before registering road playoff wins over the defending-champion Calgary Stampeders and Saskatchewan Roughriders.

I’ve lived in Manitoba for the last 12½ years. During that time, I can’t say I have been a big follower of either the CFL or NFL. But I did grow up in Oshawa, Ontario and remember Grade 9 tryouts for Tom Chase’s Oshawa Catholic High School (O.C.H.S. ) Saints well enough. The problem with sports being a metaphor for life is not that the claim is inaccurate: sports truly is a metaphor for life. The problem is the terrain of what constitutes a metaphor for life is a vast landscape. Within sports, virtually everything can and is described as being a metaphor for life.

When it comes to comparing values and ideals taken from sports and applied cinematically to life, I have a fondness for golf and high school and college football movies. While I don’t play golf (at least not yet) I did play a bit of high school football some many decades ago. Think of football as a pepperoni-and-cheese pizza slice of life.

There’s strong evidence that sport strongly reinforces certain personal characteristics such as responsibility, courage, teamwork, mental focus, persistence, humility, commitment and self-discipline.

While there are all kinds of things that can rightly divide secular moviemaking from films made by Christian genre movie producers, high school football is the game field they both play, often scoring box office touchdowns on. Perhaps in no small part because Friday night high school football is in some ways best thought of as a secular religion south of the Mason Dixon Line. High school football teams in the U.S. south usually play between eight and 10 games in a season, starting after Labor Day. If teams have successful league seasons, they advance to regional or state playoff tournaments. Some schools in Texas play as many as 15 games if they advance to the state championship game. Most American high school teams play in a regional league, although some travel 50 to 100 miles to play opponents.

Given the unsurprising, I suppose, apparent dearth of Hamilton Tiger-Cats fans here in Manitoba, I’m told I’ll be treated to my own special “chair” at friends’ tomorrow watching the game on TV. Mind you, geography and just plain contrariness are also factors when it comes to me cheering on the Ticats tomorrow. I’ve always been a bit suspicious of hometown “homers” and their boosterism. Unless, of course, the concept was applied to me growing up in Oshawa, Ontario and cheering for the adjacent Toronto Argonauts, not the Steeltown Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Angelo Mosca-era in CFL football and pro wrestling, or the Toronto Maple Leafs in NHL hockey. That was different. And BTW. Angelo is now 82 and lives in nearby St. Catharines. As for cheering for the Leafs, well, there’s been no harm in that since 1967.

No word yet on if I’ll be sharing my signature homemade cream cheese and crabmeat cracker dip, or consuming that solo, like my seating.

It takes a while to figure out CFL  football loyalties in Manitoba. Who knew there was such a thing as the “Banjo Bowl” annual rematch game after the Sunday before “Labour Day Classic” in Regina between the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders and then back in Winnipeg the following weekend? Not me. At least not until I moved here in 2007, and learned you either supported the blue-and-gold or green-and-white in the CFL. A bit more latitude seemed possible in terms of NFL fan support choices, but it still struck me there were a lot … a lot … of Green Bay Packers fans up here in Northern Manitoba. While I’m not really a cheesehead myself (being more partial to the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns), I get their appeal. Based in Green Bay, 140 kilometres northeast of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I get it here in Thompson, Manitoba.

The Green Bay Packers are the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, dating back to 1919, and is the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the United States. In 1923, four years after the team was founded, the fledgling Packers found themselves on the verge of bankruptcy, so they sold shares to the community to keep the lights on. Home games have been played at Lambeau Field since 1957.

The Packers are the last of the “small town teams,” which were common in the NFL during the league’s early days of the 1920s and 1930s. Founded in 1919 by Earl “Curly” Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun, the franchise traces its lineage to other semi-professional teams in Green Bay dating back to 1896. Between 1919 and 1920, the Packers competed against other semi-pro clubs from around Wisconsin and the Midwest, before joining the American Professional Football Association (APFA), the forerunner of today’s NFL, in 1921. Although Green Bay is by far the smallest major league professional sports market in North America, Forbes magazine ranked the Packers as the world’s 26th most valuable sports franchise in 2016, with a value of $2.35 billion.

But speaking of the Bears … the Bears. They are at Ford Field in Detroit this coming Thursday for a U.S. Thanksgiving Day match-up with the hometown Detroit Lions. Kick-off is at 11:30 a.m. here in the central time zone.

The franchises first met in 1930 when the Lions were known as the Portsmouth Spartans and based in Portsmouth, Ohio. They moved to Detroit for the 1934 season. The Bears and Lions have been division rivals since 1933 and have usually met twice a season since the Lions franchise began. The two teams play in the two largest metropolitan areas in the Midwest. Chicago and Detroit’s home stadiums, Soldier Field and Ford Field, are 450 kilometres apart and both are easily accessible from I-94.

This rivalry is the longest-running annual series in the NFL as both teams have met at least once a season since 1930.

Since its inception in 1920, the National Football League has played games on Thanksgiving Day, patterned upon the historic playing of college football games on and around the Thanksgiving holiday, a tradition that dates back to 1876, shortly after the game had been invented, as it was a day that most people had off from work.

The football-on-Thanksgiving Thursday game tradition is firmly established in Detroit. With the exception of a six-season gap from 1939 to 1944, the Thanksgiving Day game has been played with no interruptions.

The Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day heritage gained national attention with the very first game in 1934. Knowing the publicity potential of radio, NBC Radio, set up a 94-station network to broadcast the Lions-Bears showdown. The famous announcing team of Graham McNamee and Don Wilson described the action. The Chicago Bears took that one in a 19-16 victory over the Detroit Lions on Nov. 29, 1934.

In 1876, the college football teams at Yale and Princeton began an annual tradition of playing each other on Thanksgiving Day. The University of Michigan also made it a tradition to play annual Thanksgiving games, holding 19 such games from 1885 to 1905. The Thanksgiving Day games between Michigan and the Chicago Maroons in the 1890s have been cited as “The Beginning of Thanksgiving Day Football.” In some areas, most commonly in New England, high-school teams play on Thanksgiving, usually to wrap-up the regular-season.

While the fourth Thursday in November is also often the last Thursday as well (as it is this year), even a cursory glance through the years of our Gregorian calendar reveal some years, of course, have five Thursdays. Such was the case in 1939, the last year of the Great Depression, when Thanksgiving was scheduled to fall on Nov. 30, not only on the fifth Thursday of November but the very last day of November as well in fact, and less than a month before Christmas, causing President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, to use the moral authority of his office by proclamation to move Thanksgiving up a week to Nov. 23 at the initiative of Lew Hahn, general manager of the Retail Dry Goods Association, who had warned U.S. Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins as early as August that the late calendar date of Thanksgiving that year could have an adverse effect on retail sales, and that an earlier Thanksgiving could perhaps boost the bottom line.

On the downside, many college football teams traditionally ended their seasons with games against their main rivals on Thanksgiving, and had scheduled them in 1939 for Nov. 30. Some athletic conferences had rules permitting games only through the Saturday following Thanksgiving. Changing the date could mean many teams would play their season finale in empty stadiums or not at all. The change also reportedly caused problems for college registrars, schedulers and calendar makers.

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Local baseball legend Red Sangster given Key to the City of Thompson on 90th birthday

1968-69 Manitoba champion Thompson Reds. Back row left to right: Red Sangster (manager), Vern Bentley, Keith Redman, Earl Hodges, Doug Bentley, Forbes Stewart, George Goghill, Barry MacLean, Steve Sobko, Dale McDougall, Ross Papineau (president). Front: Bernie McLellan, Marcel Champagne, John Stewart, Russell Zushman, Jerry Holmstrom, Ken Hanke, Jack Sangster and Alex “Suds” Sutherland – Photo courtesy of Jack Sangster and Canadian Baseball Network

For the second time in 10 days, the City of Thompson has presented a Key to the City, the city’s highest and usually infrequently bestowed honour,  this time giving it to the legendary local baseball promoter Alexander “Red” Sangster on the occasion of his 90th birthday Oct. 15.

Dr. Alan Rich, the city’s longest-serving physician, who now lives in Swan River and practices there and here part-time,  was presented with the Key to the City of Thompson Oct. 6 (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/10/06/dr-alan-rich-the-citys-longest-serving-physician-sent-packing-into-retirement-in-2011-presented-with-the-key-to-the-city-of-thompson/)

The honour was again presented by Mayor Tim Johnston, in his final nine days as mayor after eight years in office, on behalf of the City of Thompson. A Key to the City hon ours those who have made major contributions to the community and its surroundings over an extensive period of time. Johnston was joined in the presentation to Sangster by deputy mayor Dennis  Fenske, Coun. Stella Locker, the longest-serving member of council, and city manager Gary Ceppetelli.

Sangster’s named is so synonymous with baseball in Thompson, the Red Sangster Ball Field, constructed in 1968, was named after him in 1992. The ballpark was built mostly by hand and required clearing trees that were then used to make a fence for the Thompson Zoo, which Sangster had paired up with Hawley Duncan and Len Fenske to start.

Engraved on Sangster’s Key to the City of Thompson are the words,  “In recognition of your outstanding commitment and dedication to the advancement of Recreation and Sport in the City of Thompson.”

In an official Oct. 16 news release announcing the honour, the City of Thompson noted, “It is said that many of the City of Thompson’s early employees were recruits of Red’s not only for their professional skills, but also for their athletic abilities.” Unofficially, it might well be said that “Red’s Ringers” were the stuff of local, indeed provincial, sports legend in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Born in 1924 on a farm near Walkerburn, Sangster, told started playing baseball when he was 15. He first came to Northern Manitoba by way of Snow Lake and later Thompson in 1960 as an employee of Paddy Harrison, working as a mechanic underground at the Moak Lake site. He returned to Thompson in 1961 when Inco began production, and worked as a mechanic at the mill for six months. Soon after, he would begin working the Local Government District of Mystery Lake as a grader operator, grading roads in the summer and plowing snow in the winter. He did that for 18 years.

Sangster  wore many work hats over the years. As well as being appointed as director of recreation for the Town of Thompson in October 1968,  he also had a long tenure, extending to recent years, first with Carling O’Keefe Breweries, and later with  Molson Canada, as their representative in Northern Manitoba.

He was inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, while the Thompson Reds, also named for Sangster, from the period between 1968 and 1973 were inducted in the special team category in 2003.

Baseball, however, has not been Sangster’s only local sports interest. As far back as 1968, Sangster, who managed the Thompson Midget Aces, was named Minor Hockey Volunteer of the year by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. He was also helped guide the Thompson Hawks, a men’s senior amateur team, coached by Terry Grindle for the 1972-73 season, which played in the Canadian Central Hockey League (CCHL) from 1972 to 1974. Dr. Rich was the team doctor. Made up of a good number of semi and minor pros,  the roster included Jack Sangster, Red’s son; Gerald Fenske; Keith Redman; and Alex “Suds” Sutherland, who would also one day go on to be a City of Thompson recreation director.

In 1970, he won a Manitoba Historical Society Centennial Medal with the citation reading, “For his great contribution to sports and recreation in Thompson.” In 1983, he was named Citizen of the Year Award by the Thompson Lions Club.

Even so, Sangster faced a big curve ball when the University College of the North (UCN) wanted to build its new campus student housing behind the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC), which would have meant the ball field would have to be obliterated in its current location and moved elsewhere.

For a five-month period between October 2009 and March 2010, UCN, the City of Thompson and Province of Manitoba were intent on moving Red Sangster Ball Field.

Following a public outcry, UCN backed off and relocated its student housing slightly to the southwest, saving the Red Sangster Ball Field.

Sangster also received one of the 60,000 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for presentation to civic-minded Canadians, created by the Royal Canadian Mint to mark the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the throne, on Oct. 20, 2012. As well, he was named by Our Foundation Thompson, formerly known as the Thompson Community Foundation, which was formed in 1995,  on Sept. 28, 2012 as  as the recipient of  its third annual Order of Thompson award.

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