For every sport, there is a memorable game, series or moment the fans cherish for years to come. For the University of Toronto Varsity Blues (rugby) football team, that special moment happened one day in December in 1909. Playing in front of a packed Rosedale field, the Blues faced off with the Toronto Parkdale Canoes Club to win the first ever Grey Cup.
For every sport, there is a memorable game, series or moment the fans cherish for years to come. For the University of Toronto Varsity Blues (rugby) football team, that special moment happened one day in December in 1909. Playing in front of a packed Rosedale field, the Blues faced off with the Toronto Parkdale Canoes Club to win the first ever Grey Cup, a championship for Canada’s best rugby team. Named after Canada’s Governor General Albert Henry George Grey, the Cup is now awarded to the champions of the Canadian Football League.
On October 17, the Blues football team was inducted into the 2016 Ontario Sports Hall of Fame for winning the first Grey Cup in 1909. They were presented with the Ferguson Jenkins Heritage Award, introduced in 2011 to commemorate those one-of-a-kind moments in the long history of sports in Ontario.
Professor Ira Jacobs, dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at U of T, acknowledged the award on behalf of the University of Toronto, thanking the committee “for recognizing the legacy of a game that happened 107 years ago and evolved into a recreational, social, and cultural phenomenon, and a truly national legacy.”
The Blues went on to win the Cup for the next two years, in 1910 and 1911, and again in 1920 “making U of T the winningest university with four Grey Cups,” said Jacobs.
Their winning legacy was acknowledged earlier in the year with a Grey Cup commemorative plaque mounted on the U of T Varsity Stadium by the Historic Sites and Monument Boards of Canada, and Parks Canada.