84th Grey Cup

84th Grey Cup

Toronto Argonauts Edmonton Eskimos (15–3) (11–7) 43 37 Head coach:  Don Matthews Head coach:  Ron Lancaster
1 2 3 4 Total Toronto Argonauts 0 27 3 13 43 Edmonton Eskimos 9 14 0 14 37
Date	November 24, 1996
Stadium	Ivor Wynne Stadium
Location	Hamilton
Most Valuable Player	Doug Flutie
Most Valuable Canadian	Mike Vanderjagt
Referee	Jake Ireland
Halftime show	The Nylons
Attendance	38,595
Broadcasters
Network	CBC, RDS, ESPN2
Announcers	(CBC) Steve Armitage, Chris Cuthbert, Mark Lee, Brian Williams, Glen Suitor, Brenda Irving (ESPN2) Gord Miller, Danny Kepley, Miles Gorrell
< 83rd Grey Cup 85th Grey Cup >

The 84th Grey Cup, also known as The Snow Bowl, was the 1996 Grey Cup Canadian Football League championship game played between the Toronto Argonauts and the Edmonton Eskimos at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton, Ontario. The Argonauts won the game by a score of 43-37.^[1]

Game summary

Toronto Argonauts (43) - TDs, Jimmy Cunningham, Robert Drummond, Doug Flutie, Adrion Smith; FGs, Mike Vanderjagt (5); cons., Vanderjagt (4).

Edmonton Eskimos (37) - TDs, Eddie Brown, Jim Sandusky, Henry "Gizmo" Williams, Eric Blount, Marc Tolbert; cons., Sean Fleming (5); safety, Team.

First Quarter
EDM—Safety Flutie concedes 3:37
EDM—TD Brown 64-yard pass from McManus (Fleming convert) 11:48
Second Quarter
TOR—FG Vanderjagt 37-yard field goal 1:35
TOR—TD Cunningham 80-yard punt return (Vanderjagt convert) 2:59
TOR—FG Vanderjagt 32-yard field goal 7:09
EDM—TD Sandusky 75-yard pass from McManus (Fleming convert) 7:34
TOR—TD Drummond 1-yard run (Vanderjagt convert) 12:16
EDM—TD Williams 91-yard kickoff return (Fleming convert) 12:31
TOR—TD Flutie 10-yard run (Vanderjagt convert) 14:20
Third Quarter
TOR—FG Vanderjagt 17-yard field goal 4:22
Fourth Quarter
TOR—FG Vanderjagt 28-yard field goal 3:06
EDM—TD Blount 5-yard run (Fleming convert) 7:53
TOR—FG Vanderjagt 27-yard field goal 13:26
TOR—TD Smith 49-yard interception return (Vanderjagt convert) 13:38
EDM—TD Tolbert 7-yard pass from McManus (Fleming convert) 14:51

The temperature at game time was -10°C, with 20 km/h winds and heavy snow. Tractors had to remove snow from the field prior to the game, as well as at halftime.

Edmonton had all the points in the first quarter on a safety touch conceded by Toronto quarterback Doug Flutie and a 64-yard touchdown pass from Danny McManus to Eddie Brown, a shoestring catch that is considered to be of the most memorable plays in Grey Cup history.^[2]

In the second quarter, Toronto's Mike Vanderjagt kicked a field goal and Jimmy Cunningham returned a punt 80 yards for a touchdown. Another Vanderjagt field goal put Toronto up 13-9. Edmonton regained the lead with a 75-yard pass and run from McManus to Jim Sandusky but lost it again when Robert Drummond scored for Toronto from the one. Edmonton's Henry "Gizmo" Williams reversed that in one play as he returned the kickoff 91 yards for the touchdown, a Grey Cup record that stood until the Eskimos' Tony Tompkins topped it with a 95-yard kickoff return in the 93rd Grey Cup. Flutie marched the Argos to the Edmonton 10 then ran in himself for the touchdown with 20 seconds left in the half to give Toronto the lead 27-23 at halftime, closing a quarter that saw the teams combine for 41 points.

Two Vanderjagt field goals were all the scoring in the first 23 minutes of the second half as Toronto receiver Cunningham dropped certain touchdown passes in the third and fourth quarters.

Edmonton cut the Toronto lead to 33-30 on Eric Blount's five-yard touchdown run with seven minutes remaining. But Flutie marched Toronto 71 yards, including a controversial third-down gamble in which the ball came loose, setting up Vanderjagt's 27-yard field goal at 13:26. In the controversial third-down gamble, Flutie fumbled the ball and an Eskimo picked up the fumble and started running to the Toronto endzone to score what would have been a touchdown and a 36-33 lead for the Eskimos, with a converted Edmonton point-after convert putting Toronto down 37-33 and down by more than a field goal (needing a touchdown to take the lead). But the referees ruled that Flutie was down by contact, when clearly Flutie had fumbled the ball well before the play was stopped. The referees then made the ruling even worse when they judged Flutie's forward progress to have reached the first-down marker when replays clearly showed Flutie to be short of the first down marker by over a foot. In any case, Flutie's forward progress should have been a non-issue, given that he had fumbled the ball during the snap. With the score twisted in the Argos' favour (33-30 Toronto) by the misruling of the on-field officials, and then the Argos also getting a first down when Edmonton clearly stopped the Argos' third-down gamble, the first down for Toronto allowed the Argonauts to take time off the clock, and to also kick a field goal to make the score 36-30 Toronto. It has been judged in hindsight to be the biggest blown call in official Jake Ireland's career.^{[citation needed]}

Toronto's Adrion Smith iced the win, returning a Danny McManus interception 49 yards for a touchdown with 1:22 remaining.

McManus hit Marc Tolbert with a seven-yard touchdown pass at 14:51 to round out the scoring at 43-37. An onside kick attempt was recovered by Toronto to end any Edmonton comeback threat.

Trivia

Edmonton Kicker Sean Fleming missed three field goal attempts.

The dismal weather did not dampen the enthusiasm of the raucous gathering of 38,595, which was the biggest ever at Ivor Wynne Stadium but still 1,805 short of a sellout. It was also the smallest announced Grey Cup attendance since 32,454 attended the 1975 game in Calgary.

Before the game, many people believed that Flutie could not play well in cold weather. Flutie, who was the CFL's Most Outstanding Player this season, was also named the game's top performer. Teammate Mike Vanderjagt, who booted five field goals, was voted the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Canadian.

It was the second-highest scoring Grey Cup game, next to Saskatchewan's 43-40 win over Hamilton in 1989.

It was the Argonauts' first Cup win since 1991. Ironically, they did it in the stadium that had often been called "Never Win" by the Argo fans due to the team's consistent failure to beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at that venue.

Toronto's 27 points in the second quarter came close to tying the Grey Cup record of 28 points in one quarter, set in the 1990 Grey Cup.

1996 CFL Playoffs

West Division

• Semi-final (November 10 @ Edmonton, Alberta) Edmonton Eskimos 68-7 Winnipeg Blue Bombers

• Final (November 17 @ Calgary, Alberta) Edmonton Eskimos 15-12 Calgary Stampeders

East Division

• Semi-final (November 9 @ Montreal, Quebec) Montreal Alouettes 22-11 Hamilton Tiger-Cats

• Final (November 16 @ Toronto, Ontario) Toronto Argonauts 43-7 Montreal Alouettes

In popular culture

The game serves as a key plot point to a 2013 episode of the American TV series How I Met Your Mother.^[3] In the episode, teen idol Robin Sparkles derails her music career during the game's halftime show by unveiling her new grunge persona, Robin Daggers, which triggers her move to the United States, entry into journalism and joining the program's core cast.^[4] In reality, the halftime act for the contest was The Nylons.

References