Each of the six Grey Cup titles the Toronto Argonauts have won in the past 35 years has its own special flavour.

There was the end of 31 years of frustration when Joe Barnes found Cedric Minter at BC Place in 1983. There was the surreal season of 1991 capped by Raghib (Rocket) Ismail’s kickoff return TD in frigid Winnipeg. There was Damon Allen, the newly minted career yards leader, beating his old team, the Lions, in 2004. And of course, there was the perfect end to the 100th Grey Cup at the Rogers Centre in 2012.

Then there were the 1996 and 1997 titles in what can only be coined the Doug Flutie era. And while several players will be in attendance when the team is honored at BMO Field on Monday during the game between the Argos and the Ottawa Redblacks, the focus will be on Flutie who will be named as an all-time Argo.

Flutie may be 5-foot-8, but he was by far the CFL’s biggest star. The 1984 Heisman Trophy winner, still remembered by college football fans for that last-play Hail Mary pass that propelled Boston College to a win over Miami, Flutie came to the CFL in 1990 after stints in Chicago and New England in the NFL (in addition to his season with Donald Trump’s New Jersey Generals in the USFL). He spent two years with the Lions but became a megastar with the Calgary Stampeders.

Flutie arrived in Toronto at a time the Argos were looking to revive interest and he provided a spark. His style was free-flowing, looking at times like he was orchestrating a touch football game in a sandlot. That may have been due to the freedom he was allowed.

“I did a lot of game-planning with (offensive co-ordinator) John Jenkins,” Flutie said on Sunday at a reunion of those back-to-back championship squads Argos at a downtown restaurant. “I had my ideas. He had his ideas. We talked things through. We practised everything.

“But come game time, it seemed like my ideas were the ones we went with.”

With everything so detailed in football now, it is seldom a quarterback calls his own plays but there was a reason Flutie was able to do it successfully.

“When you call your own plays, you can call whatever you’re comfortable with,” he said. “We ran about 10 plays. We ran some tricks with those plays, but we ran the same 10 plays week in and week out. It was what I was comfortable with.”

Flutie said he was able to call plays in B.C. under coach Bob O’Billovich and in Calgary, where offensive co-ordinator John Hufnagel gave him a lot of free rein.

The 1997 win had an air of inevitability to it. The Argos went 15-3 in the regular season and met the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who struggled to an 8-10 finish before winning two playoff games. Flutie threw for 350 yards and ran for a 10-yard score that night in Edmonton. Adrion Smith returned the opening kickoff of the second half 95 yards as the Argos cruised to a 47-23 win.

But more Argos fans will remember the 1996 game, one which would become known as the Snow Bowl. Snowflakes as big as quarters fell the entire day over the field at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton. There was no question as to Flutie’s favourite moment.

“Kneeling down at the end of the game when the clock ran out,” he said.

The conditions may have contributed to a game that became a classic. Both the Argos and Edmonton Eskimos made big plays. Eddie Brown caught a 64-yard pass from Danny McManus off his shoe laces while in stride for Edmonton. Smith had an interception return for a score. Jimmy (The Jet) Cunningham returned a punt 80 yards for the Argos but not to be outdone, Henry (Gizmo) Williams took a kickoff 91 yards. Flutie got into the scoring with a 10-yard dash through the snow in the second quarter. And Mike Vanderjagt kicked five field goals in a 43-37 win. The controversy of the game came with five minutes left when Flutie fumbled the snap on third down but was ruled to have retained possession and was given a first down. Even he knew that wasn’t the correct call.

“The play was blown dead, that’s fine.” Flutie said. “They made a mistake. They blew the whistle. The ball was dead. Just mark the ball short of the first down.”

THE DON MADE FOOTBALL FUN

All of the former players and coaches assembled at BMO Field on Monday to commemorate the 1996 and 1997 Grey Cup winning Argos teams will be thinking about one notable absentee.

The Don.

A lot was written about Don Matthews, the legendary coach who passed away last month at the age of 77. Matthews was at the helm of the ’96 and ’97 champions and Doug Flutie still has a fondness for the coach.

“He was such a big part of what we accomplished as a team,” he said. “He had a knack for making his players relax and go have fun. I never had as much fun (in the CFL) as I had here in Toronto.”

Despite being sometimes a polarizing, controversial figure, Matthews was also a winner and Flutie understood his formula.

“He simplified the game. He had great defences,” Flutie said. “He also had a knack for getting the players he wanted to come play for him. Guys wanted to play for Don. He was one of the guys but there were no bones about it — he was the guy in charge.”

When Matthews and Flutie hit Toronto, the chemistry was there right away.

“The first day I met him, he said to me: ‘You’re our quarterback. If you throw five interceptions in a game, you’re going to get a chance to throw six,’” Flutie said. “Just him saying that, you knew he had confidence in you.”

Flutie also kept in touch with Matthews, and credits him with raising his play to a point where, when he decided to take another shot at the NFL, the Buffalo Bills came calling.

“He helped launch my career heading back to the NFL,” he said. “Those two seasons that I played for Don, to play at that level, it’s a big part of what became my career and my lifestyle.”