Fifty years ago, the Montreal Alouettes won the Grey Cup 20-8 on the strength of four field goals by kicker Don Sweet.
Now imagine having to fish those kicks out of a lake. That could have been the case had Acton got its way. So when you’re watching the Grey Cup on Sunday, imagine the game being played in Prospect Park.
With planning underway at that time to celebrate Acton’s 100th anniversary of incorporation as a town, the Acton Centennial Commission, spearheaded by committee member Jack Carpenter, launched a bid for the 1974 Grey Cup.
Denis Gibbons, the sports editor at the Acton Free Press at the time, said it may have been Canadian Football League stars Ernie Henley, Greg Barton and Bill Danishek visiting Acton for a sportsmen’s dinner at the Acton Legion in January of 1972 that sparked the idea. About a month later, Carpenter unveiled his plan for Acton to host the CFL’s championship game.
“Because he worked for CKCO, he had media passes for the Toronto Argonaut games,” Gibbons said. “He was very good friends with (Argos quarterback) Joe Theismann and he had a lot of close contacts in the CFL.”
At the time, Acton had a population of approximately 3,000 people, meaning in order to host the game, it would need to have 10 times the town’s population in Prospect Park, which to that point had only hosted a few high school exhibition games.
That did nothing to deter CFL commissioner Jake Gaudaur.
“There is nothing to say the Grey Cup must be played in a city,” he told the media. “Small towns are the backbone of the nation.”
Of course, to no one’s surprise, the bid would not be successful – the game was eventually awarded to Vancouver.
“Everyone knew it was a joke, but Jack did everything with a straight face,” Gibbons said.
Well, not everyone was in on it. Gibbons said the Oakville Daily Journal Record devoted a full page to Acton’s Grey Cup bid.
But before awarding the game to Vancouver, both sides kept the ruse alive.
“There was quite a bit of skepticism, especially from the guys at the Legion,” Gibbons said. “But I don’t recall any movement trying to stop him. I personally thought it was quite comical.”
Carpenter, Acton Free Press editor Hartley Coles and Ted Tyler Jr. from the Chamber of Commerce flew to Montreal for a press conference at the Chateau Champlain.
“Carpenter had such a slick tongue, I think he got the airline to pay for (the flights) for the three of them,” Gibbons said.
The pitch focused on Acton being centrally located between the major markets of Toronto, Hamilton, Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo. And there was an answer for every road block the league could raise.
When the league said it would need a guaranteed gate of $600,000, Carpenter suggested he could find six wealthy residents to pay $100,000 each, and he’d even include free parking in the deal for them.
Playing along worked out for both sides. It gave Acton publicity for its upcoming anniversary and gave the league some needed press during an off-season dominated by coverage of the NHL and the Olympics.
The official reason given for rejecting the Acton bid was the organizers’ insistence on a TV blackout for Crewsons Corners, the small village between Acton and Rockwood.
Despite a threat to have Acton’s Beardmore Tannery cut off the supply of cowhide for footballs, Vancouver remained as host and Acton was left to wonder what could have been.
