OTTAWA, ON – On Tuesday, May 28th at Lansdowne Park’s Horticulture Building, the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame is inducting five new members to our local sports shrine – Dr. Mark Aubry (Builder – Medical), Mike Bullard (Athlete – Hockey), James Duthie (Builder – Media), Lyndon Hooper (Athlete – Soccer) and Luke Richardson (Athlete – Hockey), while a pair of teams will be honoured for their milestone national championship victories – the 1974 Ottawa Sooners and 1999 Ottawa 67’s. Each Tuesday and Thursday until the event, the Sport Hall will post an article on an aspect of the event. Today’s article is on the 1974 Ottawa Sooners, who will be honoured on the 50th anniversary of their Canadian Junior Football National Championship season.

OTTAWA SPORT HALL HONOURED TEAM: 1974 OTTAWA SOONERS

It’s been 50 years since the Ottawa Sooners made headlines for winning their first national junior football title.

Also making the local sports pages in fall 1974:

• The Montreal Expos raised ticket prices, but if you got a group of 30 together, you could still pay 50 cents a seat.
• Jo-Anne MacLeod led a surge of young high jumpers employing the revolutionary Fosbury Flop technique.
• Boxing fans were invited to watch George Foreman and Mohammed Ali’s rumble in Zaire on closed-circuit, big-screen TV at the brand new Nepean Sportsplex.

And then there were the Sooners, who entered the 1974 season having lost in the 1973 national final – their third defeat in the championship game within six years.

Ottawa came out on fire to start the season. A crowd of roughly 1,000 at the Mooney’s Bay Sports Complex watched the Sooners win their fifth game in a row on Aug. 31.

They tasted defeat for the first time in their next game against Verdun, but rebounded for a 61-0 trouncing of Durham, followed by two more wins and a loss to finish the regular season 8-2.

In the Eastern Canadian playoff quarter-finals, Ottawa got revenge with a 27-17 triumph over Verdun.

Following what head coach Jim Chiarelli called “the worst game a team I’ve coached has ever played” in the first end of a two-game semi-final against Niagara, the Sooners responded with a 59-7 romp back at home to run away with the series. Ottawa rushed for 319 yards and passed just twice in the game.

In the first leg of the East final against Hamilton, J.T. Hay booted five field goals for a 22-13 Sooners win at home. The team then bought 32 pairs of cleats in preparation for their first game on artificial turf at Ivor Wynne Stadium. Ottawa lost the game 17-11, but won the series 33-30 thanks to big holds by the defence in the late stages.

The Sooners landed in rainy Vancouver to visit the host Meralomas for the Little Grey Cup game on Nov. 23, 1974. The national championship final was played before 2,500 fans at Empire Stadium and broadcast on CBC.

It was the Sooners’ 16th game of the season, which helped the team build toughness and poise, their coach said prophetically in the lead-up to the big game.

Ottawa built an 8-1 lead in the first quarter as Torindo Panetta blocked a punt and Mike Morris recovered it in the end zone. Vancouver got a field goal in the second quarter but the Sooners took full control after halftime.

Fullback Ed Raicevic scored Ottawa’s second touchdown late in the third quarter, while J.T. Hay finished with two converts and a single, and the team got a safety off another blocked punt.

Ottawa quarterback Mark McCloskey was named player of the game and the Sooners’ defence held the Meralomas off the scoreboard for the full second half to prevail 17-4 and lift the Regina Leader-Post Trophy for the first time.

“I never thought we would get this far,” six-year Sooners veteran Doug Sonnenburg told Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame reporter Tom Casey of the Ottawa Citizen after the game. “I didn’t think we had the talent nor the size this year, but we were hungrier.”

The Sooners received a hero’s welcome at the Ottawa airport and were later presented with Hudson Bay coats and commemorative plaques on behalf of the municipal and provincial governments.

Ottawa Sooners 1974 Canadian junior football champion team roster:

PLAYERS

STAFF

President: Don Holtby(D)
Past President: Hon. Claude Bennett, MPP(D)
Board of Directors: Gord Cochrane, Dave Cummings, Gord Heatherington, Knobby Payne, Larry Lesage, Don Leger, Barry Weber (All D)
General Manager: Jim Maxwell(D)
Coaches: Jim Chiarelli, Martin Sevigny, Neil Wyatt
Trainer: Ernie Stansfield(D)
Assistant Trainer: Eric Stansfield
Equipment Managers: Bruce Doherty(D), John Savage, Jim Morgan, Sterling Bean(D)

MAY 28 OTTAWA SPORT HALL OF FAME INDUCTION EVENING

Tickets for the Tuesday, May 28th Induction Ceremony are now sold out!

In the lead-up to the banquet, full-length features on each of the inductees and honoured teams will be posted on the Hall’s website at OttawaSportHall.ca and shared through the Ottawa Sports Pages.

Sponsorship opportunities are still available. See OttawaSportHall.ca/Sponsorship for more details.

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Contacts:

Dave Best
Chair, Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame
Chair@OttawaSportHall.ca

About the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame:

The Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame is a non-profit organization, which documents, curates and celebrates outstanding achievement in local sport heritage. The Sport Hall is overseen by a volunteer Board of Directors to maintain and preserve our rich sporting legacies. Each year, the Hall of Fame Board receives nominations from the public and selects new inductees to be honoured in the Hall.