A Calgary-Toronto Grey Cup surely dredges up memories, because all Grey Cups do, but please let us declare a moratorium on repeating a bad one that’s the most slanderous myth in Toronto’s sports history.

That’s the one insisting Leon McQuay’s late-game fumble cost the Argos a win in the 1971 Cup against Calgary. You’ve heard it for decades and there is only one problem: It simply isn’t true.

Yes, McQuay fumbled with 1:52 left at the Calgary 11-yard-line in a game Toronto would lose 14-11. But cost the Argos a win after 19 years without a CFL championship? It contributed, but McQuay, who has been dead for several years, was far from the only culprit that day in Vancouver.

The Stampeders were the better team that game. The Argos couldn’t score. Their only touchdown came on, of all things, the lateralled return of a fumbled punt. But they had life when Jerry Keeling threw up a wobbly pass that Tricky Dick Thornton interecepted with 2 ½ minutes to go. Thornton returned the ball to the Calgary 12-yard line. A running play got one yard. On second-and-nine, quarterback Joe Theismann handed off to McQuay, running left. Go call it up on Youtube to verify: McQuay didn’t have much. He tried to cut upfield as a defender arrived and he slipped on the wet, greasy field. McQuay’s elbow banged hard on the turf and he fumbled.

Nowadays, it wouldn’t be a turnover because the ground can’t cause a fumble. Even if he had held on, he wasn’t getting close to the end zone. The best the Argos could have done was try a game-tying field goal — and Ivan MacMillan earlier had missed a 27-yarder.

Amazingly, the Argos still had another chance. Calgary went two-and-out and punted with a minute left. Harry Abofs fumbled the punt, then kicked it out of bounds. Under an obscure rule, Calgary retained possession, then ran out the clock.

McQuay’s error was one of many that day, so much so that it wasn’t mentioned until the 16th paragraph of the Star’s game story — and those were the days writers didn’t usually bury their leads. It grew in significance the following year; when the team collapsed and Leo Cahill was fired as coach, he uttered a memorable quote that stuck: “Leon slipped and I fell.’’

Yeah, he slipped. Cost them a chance to tie. But there was no guarantee the Argos were going to win, even if he had held on to the ball. The Argos went another 12 years without a Grey Cup and McQuay earned the kind of lone-assassin enmity Red Sox fans later reserved for Bill Buckner. He shouldn’t have. It’s been a bad rap for 41 years.

On the Corner: Honouring the memory of a loved one through the Jim Proudfoot Corner is an excellent way to help 45,000 children at Christmas and a group of friends and family of Vince Catalfo have earmarked $300 to both salute him and help buy the gift boxes that will be delivered in the next month.

Elaine Tanner, Canada’s legendary swim champ, and husband John Watt have moved out to Victoria, B.C., but remain close friends of the Corner, sending $100 in memory of John’s Balmy Beach hockey pal John (Jocko) Thompson. Another $100 drops from Bob Hepburn, across the newsroom.

Sebastian Kutter of Georgetown adds a welcome $200, as do ever-reliable Gordon Day of Etobicoke, retired Star stalwart Rick Haliechuk and the dynamic duo of Al Rose and Jerry (Gramps) Ingham, still running the high school hockey tournaments at York U.

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