There are local footprints all over the latest class of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, which was announced Thurdsday night in downtown Hamilton.

Fittingly, given the setting, three of the six 2013 inductees have significant ties to the Hamilton area.

Earl Winfield, a brilliant receiver and kick returner who was the first CFL player to score touchdowns in three different ways in the same game, spent his entire 11-year CFL playing career with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Miles Gorrell, a popular and gargantuan offensive lineman, played eight years for the Tiger-Cats, appearing in two Grey Cups and winning one. A scout for the Toronto Argonauts after his playing career, Gorrell is now the colour commentator on CHML’s broadcasts of McMaster Marauder games.

And Jake Ireland, by far the most recognizable referee of his era, grew up in Burlington and, just before retiring from the CFL field five years ago, returned to officiate local amateur games. He stayed with the league after hanging up his flag, and became the original lead hand in the league’s war room, ruling on video reviews.

Also inducted are Don Loney, former CFL player and longtime St. Francis Xavier University coach, Brian Fryer of the University of Alberta and Edmonton Eskimos and legendary Toronto Argonaut lineman Dan Ferrone.

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Winfield was in Hamilton in early September for the final Labour Day game at Ivor Wynne Stadium. His remarkable 1988 Labour Day — during which he had 400 all-purpose yards, including a 101-yard punt return, a 100-yard kickoff return and a 58-yard receiving touchdown — was one of nine Tiger-Cat highlights chosen to be depicted on game tickets for the last Ivor Wynne season. While here, he spent time with his metaphorical Ticat successor, Chris Williams, who became the first pro football player to score touchdowns in five different ways in the same season.

Playing on usually weak Hamilton teams, the Virginia native was one of the most popular Ticats ever, and averaged nearly 1,000 yards per year through his 11-season career. The Cats reaped 10,119 yards and 75 touchdowns from his 573 career catches.

Winfield played during the era of the greatest kick returners in CFL history and his 11 career punt return majors are second only to another great from that era, Gizmo Williams. Just 13 days after his unforgettable Labour Day explosion, Winfield scored three touchdowns in a game against Ottawa, including a 45-yard punt return for the game-winning touchdown.

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Gorrell, the massive offensive lineman, played 19 seasons in the CFL, from 1978 to ’96, eight of them in his two stints with the Tiger-Cats.

An Edmonton native who played high school in Calgary, Gorrell was drafted by the Stampeders and spent his first five seasons there before being traded to Ottawa, where he spent only two games before being traded again to Montreal, then named the Concordes. He was a CFL East all-star twice in three Montreal seasons before the Concordes made a huge error in judgment and released him in the fall of 1985.

The Ticats immediately picked up Gorrell and he was an integral part of the 1986 team that upset the Edmonton Eskimos in the Grey Cup. In the 27 seasons since that game, Hamilton has won just one Grey Cup. In that Cup-winning season Gorrell was named the East’s best offensive lineman, an honour he took again in 1989, when the Cats again reached the national final, only to lose to Saskatchewan in what most amateur historians call The Greatest Game Ever Played.

Gorrell remained with the Cats through 1991, making the Eastern all-star team three times and the all-Canadian squad in 1989. After four seasons in Winnipeg, Gorrell closed out his exemplary career back in Hamilton for the 1996 season. Although Hamilton hosted the Grey Cup that year for the first — and last — time since 1972, a season-ending injury to quarterback Matt Dunigan kept the Cats, and Gorrell, out of the Cup in his final season.

Gorrell ranks fourth all-time in CFL games played and, in 1982 when he was traded to Ottawa, then again to Montreal, he managed to play 17 games in a 16-game season. Remarkably, in the past 11 years of his playing career, he missed only one game.

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Tiger-Cats fans had a love-hate relationship with Ireland but, in the end, respected him more than any other man who has worn black and white stripes.

Born in Townsend, Ireland went to Burlington Central, and began refereeing minor football when a friend was desperate for help with a tyke flag football game at M.M. Robinson High School in 1966. He soon joined the prestigious Lakeshore Football Officials Association, one of the great officiating training grounds in this country, while he was a Mac student. The CFL recruited him after supervisor of officials Harry Ross saw him work his very first Burlington Brave junior game. He worked the sticks for three years before graduating to duty on the field of play, and was a fixture there for the next three decades.

Ireland officiated his first CFL game in June of 1979 and worked 555 games through his brilliant career, which drew to a close after he refereed the 96th Grey Cup in Montreal in 2008. That was his 15th Grey Cup, and 12th as a referee. Four of those games, from 1985 to ’88, came in succession, a rarity in the modern era.