Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 22/12/2015 (1737 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the mid-1950s, college football had four major bowl games. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Cal. was played before 100,000 fans. Miami hosted the Orange Bowl, Dallas the Cotton Bowl and New Orleans had the Sugar Bowl.

In 1956, the Blossom Boys from River Heights added the Toilet Bowl to beef up the schedule.

The matchup featured the Flushers against the Plungers, and several of the original group continued to play in the annual New Year’s Day game at Blossom Park on Wellington Crescent until the late 1970s.

Like skiers, the participants prayed for snow, since no equipment was used. The players counted on deep snow to cut down the speed and provide a soft landing pad. Few injuries were recorded other than occasional bloody noses, chipped teeth and one broken arm. The many headaches were often the result of the previous night’s festivities rather than the football game.

Over the years, the conditions ranged from a light snow-covering, which resulted in Commissioner Larry Giffin declaring that the game would be touch football that year, to 43 degrees below zero. Fahrenheit.

With little local sports news on New Year’s Day, Winnipeg media — in particular CKY-TV’s Johnny Esaw and Cactus Jack Wells and the two daily newspapers —wanted a report.

The Winnipeg Free Press once reported that, "while competition from televised games kept the crowd down, those who were in attendance were both rabid fans."

Another year, Free Press reporter Reyn Davis was told the crowd was estimated between five and seven.

"You mean there were between five and seven hundred people at the game?" he asked.

"No, we already told you — the crowd was estimated between five and seven," a Toilet Bowl official replied.

Glen (Rabbit) Reid, onetime Winnipeg Blue Bomber water boy and St. Vital juvenile all-star, played in 22 Toilet Bowls before retiring as the last of the originals. Among the many players were curler and broadcaster Ray Turnbull, future NHLer Cliff Pennington, former St. Paul’s High School quarterback and coach Gerry Bolin, John Paterson, a football hall-of-famer with the St. Vital Bulldogs, and basketball star Glen Torgerson. The Blossom stalwarts included Mike Burstow, Dave Curry, Marty Dawson, Barrie Plews, Doug Reid, Scott Reid and John Sexsmith. (Editor’s note: Columnist Ted Holland played in 21 games.)

Future Blue Bombers president Jan Brown was named rookie-of-the-year in the 16th game. The game story read that despite a "tooth-rattling ground attack led by their twin dentist fullbacks, Dr. Les Allen and Dr. Jan Brown," Plungers lost 36-28. Quarterback Torgerson led Flushers with three touchdown passes and ran for two more.

In 1975, the Free Press headline read "Metre for Metre, Plungers Prevail." The 14-7 victory over the Flushers was the first game anywhere to use the metric system. Bolin threw two TD passes to Brown and led the rushers with 105 metres. Losing playing-coach Giffin gave credit to the victor’s front four of veterans Turnbull and Gord McInnes and co-rookies-of-the-year Dean Woolley and Ken Skinner.

"Every time we tried to run the ball, they hit us like 907 kilograms of bricks," Giffin said.

As the Blossom Boys retired, younger players were waiting to replace them. In 1977, Vilnis Vulfs was named top rookie. He had led Kelvin to the high school football championship in 1964 and won the Harry Hood Trophy as the city league’s top player.

Memories of Sport appears every second week in the Canstar Community News weeklies. Kent Morgan can be contacted at 204-489-6641 or email: sportsmemories@canstarnews.com