Hamilton Tiger-Cats

ARTICLE CONTENTS:  |  Links to Other Sites
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a FOOTBALL team. Throughout the history of football in Hamilton, teams there have had a variety of names: Tigers, Alerts, Wildcats, Flying Wildcats. The Tigers had won 2 Canadian Rugby Union Championships (1906, 1908) and 5 GREY CUPS (1913, 1915, 1928, 1929, 1932) competing as one of the Big Four (Interprovincial Football Union), and the Wildcats, created as a service club during WWII, had won the 1943 Grey Cup and remained in the Ontario Rugby Football Union after the war. The name Tiger-Cats was adopted in 1950 when the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Flying Wildcats merged. A contest among followers was held to determine the colours of the newly formed team; the result was a combination of the two teams' colours: yellow, black, red, white and blue. Over the years, the colours have evolved to gold, black and white and remain to this day. Future CFL Commissioner Jake GAUDAUR played on the new team, which won the 1953 Grey Cup.

The most successful years of the franchise were in the 1950s and 1960s when the team appeared in 10 Grey Cups. Beginning in 1957 under coach Jim Trimble (who left the team after the 1962 season), the Tiger-Cats played in every national final through 1967, except for those of 1960 and 1966, winning 4 Cups (1957, 1963, 1965 and 1967). Tiger-Cat teams have always been characterized by tough defence. Another Grey Cup victory came in 1972 when the Tiger-Cats played before many Hamilton fans at Ivor Wynne Stadium.

The Tiger-Cats were purchased by Harold Ballard in 1978, and despite their success on the field, including a Grey Cup victory in 1986, the team lost money every year. Hamilton businessman David Braley bought the team in 1989 and they responded by advancing to the Grey Cup game, losing to Saskatchewan. Continued poor attendance led Braley to sell the team to a community-based group in 1992. In 1997 the team recorded its worst season ever, and reacted by hiring Ron LANCASTER as head coach. The next season saw Hamilton at the Grey Cup game, narrowly losing to Calgary. In a rematch with Calgary in 1999, Hamilton won its first Grey Cup since 1986. In all, the Tiger-Cats have appeared in 18 Grey Cup games since 1950 and have won 8, most recently in 1999 when they defeated the Calgary Stampeders in Vancouver by a 32-21 score. The Tiger-Cats have their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium, an outdoor stadium that seats 29 161.

Author DEREK DRAGER


Links to Other Sites
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The official Tiger-Cats website.

sportsnet.ca
Check out the sportsnet.ca website for the latest sports news and videos.

0
0
Absolutely free, with over 40,000 articles in French and English, The Canadian Encyclopedia is the ultimate online resource for all things Canadian, from history, sports, arts, science, technology, and much, much more. Get started at www.TheCanadianEncyclopedia.com
Feature Articles
Canada at the Winter Olympics

The first time that a winter sport was included in the Olympic games was during the 1900 summer Olympics....

INSIDE TCE

Gallery
Browse the rich visual resources of The Canadian Encyclopedia through thematic galleries of Canadian Art, History, Nature, People, and Science and Technology.
Interactive Resources
Illustrations, lively text, animations, sounds and games help make learning about Canadian history, art, geography, architecture and other topics entertaining as well as informative.
Canucklehead
The ultimate test of your knowledge of Canada, trivial and otherwise. You can choose from more than 60 dynamic quizzes with visual or text clues. Your scores depend on the speed with which you answer and the number of clues you need. Results are sent to you by email and high scores are posted on the site.
Timeline
This unique resource includes more than 6000 events from Canadian and world history. It can be searched by era, subject, keyword or date. To find out what happened on your birthday, select the month and day of your birth.
100 Greatest Events
This selection of the 100 "greatest" events in Canadian history was made by editor in chief James H. Marsh to draw attention to events that have left an indelible memory in the minds of later generations.