Inside the CFL: Being Green, not for the faint of heart

By MEDICINE HAT NEWS on November 13, 2025.

sports@medicinehatnews.com@MedicineHatNews

“It’s not easy being Green.”

– Kermit the Frog.

In 1948, the black and red Regina Roughriders became the Saskatchewan Roughriders and donned green and white after the team president saw the jerseys on sale in Chicago.

In 1951 a tall Tulsan named Glenn Dobbs took the province by storm, (they named Regina Dobberville) and led a battered bunch into the big game against Ottawa, losing 21-14.

I remember listening to the game on the radio with my dad. The next morning, Sunday, he got to the drug store early to buy a copy of a special Toronto Grey Cup edition of the game which was filled with photos, a Canadian tradition until the advent of television.

The Riders had a great team in 1956 but lost the conference final in three games to the even greater group of Jackie Parker, Johnny Bright and Normie Kwong.

After the team almost folded, their Golden Age began, 1962-’76, led by GM Ken Preston, coach Eagle Keys and players like Ron Lancaster, George Reed and Ed McQuarters. But after winning the team’s first ever Grey Cup in 1966 over Russ Jackson’s eastern Riders, they lost their next five appearances.

They were never in the 1967 Cup, a 24-1 loss to a superb Hamilton defence. The main feature of the 1969 game was the last hurrah of Russ Jackson, which his Ottawa Rough Riders won 29-11 on a frozen field in Montreal. Said Eagle Keys a few years later, “There are some games you get the feeling you’re not going to be allowed to win. That was one of them.”

The Riders returned to the title game in Hamilton in 1972, the Ti-Cats led by an exciting rookie quarterback Chuck Ealey. Their most dangerous weapon was Canadian tight end Tony Gabriel. Rider linebacker Wayne Shaw said, “Late in the fourth quarter, Gabriel had not caught one pass. I’m hitting him off the line all day. That was my job.”

Head coach Dave Skrein thought they needed more speed on defence, so he pulled Shaw in favour of rookie Bill Manchuck. Ealey found Garney Henley and Gabriel and marched into field-goal range. Another rookie, Ian Sunter, kicked it through, winning 13-10.

An old mantra in sports is, ‘you win as a team, you lose as a team’. I interviewed hundreds of players and coaches for my books on the Grey Cup and Roughriders. Star after Rider star condemned their coaching staff’s decisions in that 1972 Grey Cup. It was assistant John Payne who convinced Skrein to pull Shaw. It was John Payne, as Rider head coach, who worked his black magic in the next Saskatchewan Grey Cup disaster in 1976 when Gabriel, this time playing for Ottawa, got off the line and scored the winning touchdown in the final minute.

That dark day was followed by an 11-year playoff drought after which they won the greatest Grey Cup of them all, 1989, when Dave Ridgway kicked the field-goal with seconds remaining to beat Hamilton 43-40.

They did lose in 1997 to Doug Flutie and the Argonauts, perhaps the greatest Grey Cup team ever, and, of course, the 13th man (Sean Lucas) game against Montreal in 2009. But they prevailed over the Bombers in 2007 and hapless Hamilton in 2013.

Then there were the near misses that prevented them from getting to the Grey Cup.

In the 1965 semifinal Ron Lancaster had Jim Worden open in the Winnipeg end-zone for the winning touchdown but hit the upright instead. “If I’d been trying, I’d have never hit that goal post in a hundred years,” he told me later.

Then in 1970 the 14-2, best Rider team ever, lost in a blizzard at Taylor Field when Calgary’s Larry Robinson aimed 10 feet wide and kicked the Stampeders into the Grey Cup against Montreal. (“I closed my eyes.”)

In that same game, film showed that George Reed and Gary Lane each scored touchdowns but the referee said no.

In 1992 Dave Ridgway, slipped and fell in Edmonton trying to win the semifinal.

And, of course, Paul McCallum, missing a chip shot field goal in B.C. Place. One Rider “fan” was so angry at McCallum, he dumped a load of manure on what he thought was the kicker’s driveway but missed, nailing the neighbour instead.

Kermit understands. It isn’t easy being green.

Graham Kelly has covered the CFL for the Medicine Hat News for 53 years. Feedback for this column can be emailed to sports@medicinehatnews.com.