100 Grey Cups: This Is Our Game

by Stephen Brunt

This country and its people are made of the same hardy stuff that makes our game and our league. The Grey Cup has helped unite our country for 100 years now. And it has revealed us, built our pride and our sense of Canadianness in annual tributes to effort, sweat and toil. But what does 100 years of history and cultural relevance add up to? When we Canadians look at the Grey Cup, we see far more than a gleaming football trophy; we see a reflection of ourselves. After its first years as an amateur challenge cup, the Grey Cup would go on to be awarded to the best football team in Canada, with Western challengers traveling back east to fall at the hands of the more established Toronto teams. That is, until a group of frustrated Winnipeggers paid an enormous sum during the Depression to buy up star players and bring the cup west for the first time. Following this, the games became about the pride of the country, East versus West, the national identity fought over the gridiron, all chronicled dutifully by bestselling author Stephen Brunt. 

From the birth of the modern CFL in 1958, through the dynastic Edmonton Eskimos and into the nineties, attempted USA expansion, franchise re-birth in Montreal, 100 Grey Cups has it behind-the-scene anecdotes, never-before-seen photographs, and unprecedented access to the CFL archives. It is a must-have for all fans of this national tradition

Genres: Sports, Nonfiction, Football, Canada, History

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Stephen Brunt is a Canadian sports journalist, well known as a current columnist for Sportsnet.ca, Sportsnet, and as co-host to Jeff Blair on Writers Bloc alongside Richard Deitsch.

Brunt started at The Globe as an arts intern in 1982, after attending journalism school at the University of Western Ontario. He then worked in news, covering the 1984 election, and began to write for the sports section in 1985. His 1988 series on negligence and corruption in boxing won him the Michener Award for public service journalism. In 1989, he became a sports columnist.

Nominated for several National Newspaper Awards, Brunt is also the author of seven books. His work Facing Ali, published in 2003, was named one of the ten best sports books of the year by Sports Illustrated. Brunt makes frequent appearances on sports talk radio shows such as Prime Time Sports and Melnick in the Afternoon on the Team 990 in Montreal. He has been the lead sports columnist for The Globe and Mail since 1989 and was a frequent sports panelist on TVOntario's now-defunct current affairs programme Studio 2. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2007.

He currently resides with his wife, Jeannie, in Hamilton, Ontario, spending much of his summer vacation in Winterhouse Brook, Newfoundland.

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice Christmas present I finally got around to reading. One can't go wrong with Stephen Brunt. There used to be many CFL books when I was a kid, so a "celebration" like this is much welcome.

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Brunt goes through the history of the Grey Cup (Canada’s Highest Football Championship – comparable to the Superbowl). He does not simply go through each of the 100 Grey Cup games ever played. Instead, Brunt looks at each of the Canadian Football league teams, and focuses in on one or two of the big moments for those teams. Much of the information was interesting. However, Brunt tended to repeat himself continuously throughout the book. One section near the end of the book was the exact copy and paste of a section written earlier. I’m not sure if this was an editing error, but it stood out. 4 Stars, only because I'm a huge CFL fan. 3 stars if I was not.

[Douglas McLeod · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice book on the history of the Canadian professional football championship game's history. However, I found some of the stories in the book to be a little repetative, and the stats in the Appendix are helpful, I found a couple to be incorrect (i.e. wrong teams playing in certain years.) I want to give this a 3.5/5, but I don't see anyway to give half-stars on here.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Canadian Football history

Solid book on the history of Canadian football history. At times disjointed going back and forth but otherwise informative. Recommended for sports historians on North American football.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book on the history of the championship game of the Canadian Football League. My full review can be found on my blog:

http://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/201...