Ottawa’s First Win

In hopes of attracting more young kids to the game, the BC Lions for the first 2,000 kids (12 and under) will receive a voucher for free backpack courtesy of TELUS and these vouchers can be redeemed on the concourse.

Recently the BC Lions lost of one of its founding fathers Vic Spencer and will hold a pre-game ceremony and attending the game was his Grandchildren Victor, Michael, David and Paloma who will serve as honorary captains.

He (Vic) played football at Upper Canada College (1942) plus the Hamilton Tigers (Ontario Rugby Football Union) prior to returning to British Columbia for two more years (1947 and 1948) of senior football.

He led a group that was seeking admission into the Western Inter-Provincial Rugby Union, later known as the West Division of the CFL.

Along with other team directors worked for 3 years before they finally received approval from other member clubs in 1953.

In 1954 the first BC Lions team played at Empire Stadium, which at that time was a new facility for Vancouver.

As member of the stadium committee helped supervise construction and was on the organizing committee of the 1954 Empire Games.

The Lions also recognized (former) Lions Head Coach Bob O’Billovich as well as BC amateur football executive Larry Reda on the recent induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame.

The 4-5 BC Lions hosted the 5-4 Ottawa REDBLACKS in an afternoon contest at BC Place and following a road win over the Alouettes, the Lions are moving forward.

Ottawa on the other hand is coming off a bye week and is caught in a close divisional race.

Last week’s win saw the Lions make the midseason turn on the regular season and are set on a home play-off berth.

Victory on the field was expensive as they lost the services of QB Travis Lulay with a grade-2 MCL sprain and now forced to use 2^nd year QB John Beck.

Last week saw them achieve five interceptions, one that included Eric Fraser’s 57-yard effort for a touchdown in the third quarter.

The team lost the number one QB as well as the middle linebacker as well as playing the youngest team in the CFL, show’s there is work to do prior to the upcoming week.

The first half started slow for the Lions, but the continual drive shown is why they are a fan favourite among the community.

The Lions started the third where they left off heading to the half and with the strong arm of Henry Burris shows why he is the strong force behind the RedBlacks.

The Lions were unable to sustain any long drives as well as put any added pressure on the RedBlacks seeing the Lions down 24-18 at the end of the 3^rd quarter.

The final quarter saw the Lions play not only catch up on the scoreboard, but also play as a group and help each other out and with a young team possibly some of the players wonder who they can relate to.

It was reported that following the game Lions Andrew Harris left the dressing room without any post-game with the media, which is not like how he acts at any time.

Some are pointing the finger at the Head Coach Jeff Tedford saying that possibly we should have more running backs and rather than just use Harris, we need another go-to guy.

Others are saying the play or lack of is on the shoulders of the offence co-ordinator and maybe bring back Scott Ackles.

Interesting that the announced attendance was just over 19,000 but many in the press box were wondering where they were hiding at?

This was the first win for Ottawa in Vancouver dating back to 1990 and it came at the expense of a team let-down.

The Lions have a week of practices to get them ready in Calgary (September 18th) and see if they can manage to work some magic against the Stampeders.