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The mud bowl

Broadcast Date: Nov. 25, 1950

It's muddy, it's messy, and it's the first sold out Grey Cup game ever. Twenty-seven thousand fans are packed into Toronto's Varsity Stadium to watch the hometown Argonauts play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, for the 1950 Cup. A big snowfall the night before has just melted, thanks to a kick-off temperature of 10 C, so the field is pure mud. Beginning a long tradition of weather-related drama, the game continues despite the conditions.

Midway into the game, a Blue Bomber plummets, face down, into a muddy puddle. When he doesn't move for several minutes the fans call out, trying to alert someone that he might be in danger. Years later, the game would be remembered as the only one in which a player nearly drowned.

The mud bowl

• The ref rolled 260 pound Robert Porter (Buddy) Tinsley onto his back. His arm fell limp into the puddle where he lay, sending two feet of water flying into the air. By his own account, he wasn't unconscious though. Tinsley said he was just "mad" after being hit in the leg where he already had a bad charley horse.

• Toronto emerged as better mud navigators, beating Winnipeg 13-0.

• In 1962, it was fog that turned the gridiron into an obstacle course. It was nearly impossible for fans to see the players, or even for the players to see each other. Known as the "Fog Bowl," the game was suspended with nine minutes left and continued the following day.

• Other weather-related games include "Snow Bowl" in 1939, when snow fell so thickly in Ottawa that fans parked cars on the sidelines and turned on their headlights to see the field; and the 1971 "Swamp Bowl," played in Vancouver after six days of rain.

The mud bowl

Medium: Television

Program: CBC Television Sports

Production Date: Nov. 25, 1950

Duration: 13:14

Last updated:
Feb. 17, 2010