Canadian Football: The Grey Cup Years

Book excerpt: Canadian Football: The Grey Cup Years traces the first sixty years of the Grey Cup and its influence as a catalyst for the growth of football in Canada. Football moved from an occasion for competition among local teams, to inter-city and inter-provincial rivalries and eventually to the national scene. It began as a purely amateur sport and morphed into the Canadian Football League. Key elements in its growth are discussed: the rise of professionalism, rules of the game and the style of play as well as many of the defining moments and personnel of the era. The book stands alone as well as a lead-in to three other books on Canadian football by Cosentino: Closed Doors and Edmonton Crude, Gone South, and Home Again.