Alouettes’ Hunsinger (84) is stopped by Edmonton tackler in 1954 Grey Cup game.

Vancouver goes wacky
on eve of Grey Cup tilt

Stinkers, tailors, butchers, sailors (or however the old nursery rhyme goes) are all

talking about the Grey Cup game this
of footballitis, and thetinflux of pigskin-
and Montreal is helping to spread the virus.

tived by plane (it’s the best way to travel if you're flying)

Set! during the British Empire
ames,

“What time is it?” is no longer
the question of the hour. “Who do
you like, Eskimos or Alouettes?”
1S all one hears.

Football filberts are making
Plenty bets on the outcome of
the first Grey Cup game ever
bloyed here. Western money is
"ding on the Esks, while Ontario
®nd Quebec fans back the Als.

Biggest scandal connected with
ne game is the way blocks of
lckets have mysteriously appear-
€don the local market, and are
béing offered to the public by

Saturday. Vancouver is suffering from a bad case
happy visitors from Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto
Some 15,000 people are estimated to have ar-

and train, topping the record

merchants as “giveaway” prizes
with merchandise. It is no secret
that these bootleg tickets come
from the blocks given certain

other clubs, who use this means.

to get out of the red on 1955
operations. ;
~The CBU allocates tickets to
each senior football league, and
they are distributed among the
clubs. The WIFU received 10,-
259 tickets; the Big Four 9,500;
the CRU 8,100; the ORFU 2,700.

BC. Lions were alloted 4,126
reserved seats and 8,000 standing
room tickets.

Many clubs have paid for their
tickets, then bootlegged them at
a higher tariff.

All this has regular football
supporters up in arms. Fans
who attended faithfully for two
seasons as Lions lost and _ lost
and lost again, now find them-
selves forced to buy a suit of

clothes to get a ticket to the big
game Saturday. :

| This gouging of the public has
attended every Grey Cup game
for several years, but people are

: Bad to think it is time

someone called a halt. A new
method of ticket distribution is
being mooted for next year.

. | Edmonton Eskimos are the only
club not suspect.

To prevent

‘ di Epoonen ein’ in tickets, the Esks

made Edmonton fans show proof
lof transportation to Vancouver
‘before alloting tickets, which
were not presented to them until
their arrival here.

The. 39,000 fans jamming Em-
pire Stadium will be only a small
section of the Canadians who will
watch the game. In Vancouver
alone some 100,000 TV sets will
be tuned to Channel 2 and across
the country millions of people
will see the game on television.
Even British TV owners will be
able to enjoy the final 20 min-

made for an overseas telecast.

The big day starts with the
morning ‘parade through down-
town streets, which will prob-
ably dwarf the annual PNE par-
ade. Then those citizens lucky
enough to possess Grey Cup tick-
ets will make a beeline for Em-
pire Stadium, while everyone
else will head for their own or
a friend’s TV set.

\" Game time is 1:30 p.m.

utes, as arrangements have been

Bert Whyte'e

1 aes es Lazonga poured the
pekoe onto the tablecloth
and peered prophetically at the
spilt-T formation in the bottom
of my cup.
Tee-heeing nervously, I
waited for her words of wisdom.
“I see a child crying in front
of an igloo,’ she croaked, “and
the numerals 28-22. That is all.”
“You mean the Eskimos are
going to lose to Alouettes?” T
cried. “Are you SURE 2?”

“J have said what I have seen,”
quoth the madame. “One dol-
lar, kid.”

Paying the old hag, I stag-
gered out into the rain, my brain
in a -whirl. Dare I tell my
readers that Montreal would
win? And what if they lost ?
I’d be torn limb from limb.

No, I said to myself, I’d bet-
ter keep this information to
myself, and let no one know
what Madame Lazonga had said.

x x x

A football scribe for a local
daily, fellow by the name of
Annis Stukus, watched Alouet-
tes scrape past Argonauts last
Saturday, and promptly wrote:
“T like those Esks.”

Another typewriter jockey for
a morning sheet, one Keith
Matthews, solemnly told Eskimo
coach Pop Ivy in print: “If
your Eskimos had caught the
Alouettes playing like they did
last Saturday, you would have
won it, 105-0.” He went on to
predict an Edmonton win at
Empire Stadium.

A word of caution was in-
jected by Jim Coleman in the
pink edition of an afternoon
daily. ‘Les Alouettes can be
‘had’ but, if the Montrealers
play at the top of their form, the
Eskimos will have to be stron-
ger than the Edmonton team
which won the Grey Cup in
1954,” wrote Coleman, who
knows a thing or three about
sports.

a % 5os

Alouettes are a proud bunch,
and their pride almost caused
their downfall last Saturday.
They entered the game against
Argos supremely confident that
it would be a walkover—and
barely managed to win.

Argonauts scored 24 points in
the second quarter and stunned
spectators saw the famed Alouet-
tes fall apart. Jim Coleman
described it best when he wrote:

“From a western viewpoint,
the encouraging features of the
Montreal-Toronto game was the
fact that the ‘supermen’ legend
of Les Alouettes was destroyed.
Even that poised and sophisti-
cated quarterback, Sam ‘The

PAT ABBRUZZI
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 25, 1955 — PAGE Il

 SPORTLIGHT

Pen’ Etcheverry demonstrated
that he is only human; prone

‘to stumble, slip and to be de-

serted by his customary calm
in moments of crisis.

“Such proficient pass-receivers
as Hal Patterson, Red. O’Quinn
and Poey Pal dropped the ball
and, in the second quarter,
Etcheverry must have _ been
struck color-blind momentarily
for he was throwing the ball to
the white-clad Argonauts rather
than to his own red-uniformed
Alouettes.

‘Tf Les Alouettes will be
gracious enough to play one of
those . quarters against the

‘Eskimos this week, we’ll be able

to pay off the mortgage on the
old homestead and the garage
and the privy will be bulging
with ‘number one sorthern
wheat.”

x x a

What shouldn’t be overlooked
is that the Alouettes are still]
burning over their loss to Esks
last year, and on Saturday will
be out for revenge. This is the

SAM ETCHEVERRY

«

game they’ve been pointing at
all season, and it is unlikely they
will come up with two bad
ones in a row.

During the 1955 season Eski-
mos have shown greater im-
provement than Alouettes, and
experts say they were playing
in a tougher league.

Despite all this, I lean toward
the Montreal team. Even against
Ivy’s collection of stars, I think
Montreal_can score about five
touchdowns,. which should be
enough to win the game.

The* Alouettes are a_  go-
ahead team. Etcheverry throws
the ball better than Jackie
Parker, especially on the short
pass. He can’t run as: well as
Parker, and probably won’t try
to lug the pigskin too often. But
he has two powerhouse runners
in Abbruzzi and Caroline, who
will both gain plenty of ground.

Against Abbruzzi and, Caro-
line, Parker will use Bright and
Kwong. It is impossible to fault
these boys.

The more you look, the more
your head spins. The more you
analyse, the more logic says
the Esks can take it.

So I'm throwing the charts
out of the window and reverting
to my _ season-long hunch:
Alouettes by at least one touch-
down. i ;

$e 3 5og o

About ticket. scalping. It’s a
disgrace, and officials who say
nothing can be done about it
should be bounced. The present
method of distributing tickets
should be scrapped and a bet-
ter system adopted for next
year.

ls tldaeleahckalc ceils aipssBisabcec- wha sean

Nhat, cae te eM ie de

ew shia lama MTD TA Bet