Ottawa has a long and proud sport tradition, and in this ongoing series, we present highlight moments and figures from our local sport history. The Ottawa Sport History Highlight series is produced collaboratively by the Ottawa Sports Pages and the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, which has welcomed almost 300 inductees dating back to its establishment in 1968.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the first time Pedro the Panda was awarded to the victors of the clash between the national capital’s university football teams on Oct. 10, 1955. The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees will face the Carleton University Ravens in this year’s showdown on Sunday, Oct. 5 at noon. The Gee-Gees have won six Panda Games in a row after the Ravens owned Pedro for the previous four. In this edition of the Ottawa Sport History Highlight Series, we look back on the legend of Pedro the Panda.

Standing three-feet tall, Pedro the stuffed panda bear was originally a mascot for the Ottawa University Varsity football team (they’d be called “Gee-Gees” more regularly in future years).

A pair of students brought Pedro to prominence as they sought to drum up increased interest in the Ottawa vs Carleton rivalry game. Thomas White and Bryan McNulty, an editor with U of O’s student newspaper The Fulcrum, arranged for jeweller Jack Snow to donate the panda and put it on display in his downtown store.

In the days before the game, Pedro was stolen. Whether the theft was real or imagined, the Ottawa Citizen bought in to the hype, publishing a story with the headline College ‘Pandanappers’ Object of City Search. It read:

A city-wide search, sparked by irate University of Ottawa students, was in progress this afternoon following a brazen noon-hour kidnapping of the university’s football mascot “Pedro the Panda.”

The stuffed panda, which U of O has put up as a challenge trophy for the Thanksgiving Day game with Carleton College at Lansdowne Park, had been on display in the Jack Snow store on Sparks Street.

At a few minutes after 12 o’clock noon – a time when Sparks Street was thronged with lunch-hour crowds – three young men pulled up in a car in front of the store.

While one, obviously the “look-out,” remained at the wheel of the auto, the other two sauntered into the Snow store, grabbed Pedro from his perch on a front counter, and fled with him before store personnel knew what was taking place.

Aroused to fighting fury over the “pandanapping”, U of O students were quick to blame Carleton students for the “crime”.

Peter Tanguay, president of the U of O Student Federation, told The Citizen: “This is one of the dirtiest tricks we have ever had perpetrated on us, and it had to happen almost on the eve of our big game with Carleton next Monday.

“When Mr. Snow donated the panda as a mascot for our team, Carleton wisearces immediately hurled insults at Pedro. For that reason we put him on the line as a trophy for the winner of the game.

“Apparently they figured they couldn’t win the panda from us fairly on the football field, so they decided to snatch him before hand.”

Carleton students were quick to deny that they had anything to do with the noon-time “snatching”. Said Elaine Dawson, member of the Student Council: “What, a scaley old stuffed bear? Why we wouldn’t be found dead with it.”

In the meantime the hunt for Pedro is on in full swing and, while city police, RCMP and the FBI have not been called in as yet, Ottawa University threatens drastic counter-action if the prized panda is not returned pronto.

The mystery of the heist was never solved, although Pedro did reappear in dramatic fashion, reported The Ottawa Journal the day after the contest:

Midway through the final quarter of the Carleton-Ottawa-U football game at Lansdown Park, Pedro came parachuting down from the stadium roof. Apparently he had been hiding in the press box since his disappearance on Thursday.

That very first Panda Bear Game between Ottawa University and Carleton College was played on Oct. 10, 1955 at Lansdowne Park, which had only recently become Ottawa’s home stadium after a run of over 70 years at the Varsity Oval.

That’s where uOttawa’s engineering building now sits, while across the street to the east is Matt Anthony Field, named after the man who coached the Gee-Gees in the inaugural Panda Game.

It was Carleton that won the Thanksgiving Monday 1955 contest between the local Ottawa-St. Lawrence Football Conference rivals 14-6, and Pedro was presented to captains Graydon Harrison and Doug Duclos.

“The Carleton cheerleaders quickly put Pedro to work,” The Ottawa Journal noted. “They hoisted him on their shoulders and he led the victory parade along Bank street and back to Carleton College.”

All the Pedro publicity paid off as the first Panda Game drew 1,500 fans – “probably the largest crowd ever to watch a Carleton game,” The Ottawa Journal estimated.

The Panda tradition has of course grown exponentially since then. Attendance grew to 20,000 come 1987, it set an attendance record of 24,600 in 2019, and remains a routine sell-out at TD Place.

Pandanapping became a regular practice around the game after the first disappearance. It had become so commonplace that uOttawa students put a fake panda on display to avoid the theft of the real bear.

The legend extended beyond Ottawa too. Pedro was once kidnapped by Queen’s engineering students, who held Pedro for ransom (to raise money for African famine relief). He was once forgotten in Hamilton at McMaster, but was later rescued by staff from La Rotonde, uOttawa’s French student newspaper.

While in uOttawa hands, Pedro travelled across the country as an ambassador for the university, and was offered a smoke by administrators for a job well done once he returned home in 1959.

Carleton students were too rough with Pedro during halftime of the 1959 contest when he lost his head. Once reattached, Pedro showed no ill-will. In fact, he once ran for the presidency of Carleton’s students’ council, and he also gave blood as part of a donor drive.

Kidnapped, fake kidnapped, and much worse – Pedro has been the subject of many more wild stories, some of which may even be true.

One tale devoid of reality (and good taste, some would say) was published by The Ottawa Journal in 1966, claiming that Pedro had died and was cremated, but not before having an affair with an Ottawa U frosh queen, which produced a son who was being cared for by a group of dedicated women on campus while the mother continued her education.

Pedro did have a bear spouse for a time when the teams faced off twice each year – Carmelita was awarded to the winner of the other non-Pedro match. The pair were called “estranged spouses” when the schools each won one of the games and they had to live apart.

The blood and beer stains on Pedro tell that he’s been through a lot while celebrating with victorious players before they’d cleaned up from battle. Pedro has many signatures on him and he’s got both Gee-Gees and Ravens pennants stitched to his hide.

The original stuffed bear was retired after a remarkably durable run, replaced at last in 1979 by a bronze bear trophy. When the Panda Game resumed in 2013 following Carleton’s football program’s hiatus from 1999-2012, local artist Dale Dunning created a brushed aluminum version of Pedro, which is the current prize awarded to the winning team.

Although uOttawa now holds an advantage of 38-17 in Panda Game matchups, it took until the third edition for Ottawa to earn back their mascot. But their 44-0 shellacking of a flu-stricken Carleton side in 1957 remains the largest margin of victory of all-time.

The best team to win Pedro was the 1975 Gee-Gees, who went on to win the Vanier Cup with a perfect 11-0 record. They were later inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame on the 40th anniversary of their triumph in 2015.

When the Ottawa Sport Hall celebrated its 50th birthday in 2017, the original Pedro bear appeared at the party (inside a protective case).