very once in a while, a second-string player will come off the bench to play the game of a lifetime. That's what happened to Roy Alvin "Red" Storey of the Toronto Argonauts during the 1938 Grey Cup.

Red Storey was not a bad all-around athlete. He played with the Argos for a few years, earned a big-league tryout in baseball, and once scored twelve goals in a single lacrosse game. He played hockey for a couple of American teams and the Montréal Royals, too. But he never had a game like his storied Grey Cup match against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on December 12, 1938.

Storey, a second-string running back, sat on the bench until the beginning of the fourth quarter. Winnipeg had the lead, seven to six, and were effectively stopping the name players on the Toronto team: Annis and Bill Stukus, Art West, and Bob Isbister. Then Storey went in. For the next fifteen minutes he played like a man possessed, and he carried the rest of the team with him.

In those days, western teams were the underdogs in the East vs. West Grey Cup competitions, and had to import American players to challenge the university-rich eastern teams. The western style of play was more American, too, with more passing and crisper blocking than the rugby-inspired razzle-dazzle of the eastern teams. On this occasion, Storey dazzled the Blue Bombers to utter defeat.

On the first play of the fourth quarter, Toronto halfback Bob Isbister passed to Annis Stukus for fifteen yards. On the next play, Storey took a lateral and swept to the right. There was a man outside of him to lateral to, but Storey sensed an opening inside and cut back, avoiding five tacklers and running twenty-eight yards for a touchdown - worth five points in those days. Stukus kicked the extra point, and Toronto had the lead, 12 to 7. That was all they needed, but it wasn't the end of the scoring.

On the next series of plays, Storey played both defence and offence. He intercepted a Winnipeg pass and returned it through rattled Blue Bomber tacklers to the six yard line. A couple of plays later, Storey lunged in for his second TD.

The desperate Bombers relied on the pass to get back into the game. Closing in on the Toronto goal line, the Winnipeg quarterback launched a pass to the corner of the end zone. But defender Bob Isbister leapt for the interception and began to return the ball. As he was going down to a tackle, Isbister expertly lateralled the ball to Storey, who charged down the sideline for 100 yards until a Blue Bomber knocked him out of bounds on the five yard line. It was a temporary reprieve - Toronto scored on the next play.

Storey scored once more - a nine yard charge up the centre - to account for fifteen points in the quarter. Before Storey entered the game, the Argos had been down seven to six. When it was over, they had won thirty to seven. Led by Storey, the Argos gained more yards in the final quarter than Winnipeg had the entire game, and, counting the interception yardage, Storey himself had gained 190 yards.

Naturally, his teammates carried Red off the field on their shoulders, but the unheralded and underpaid second-stringer still had to hitchhike home.

There have been some great Canadian-born football players, like Russ Jackson and Norm Kwong, and some American-born imports, like Jackie Parker and Doug Flutey, who have electrified the Canadian game. For fifteen minutes Red Storey was as great an athlete as any one of them. Unfortunately, he never played another game like that again.

overnor General Earl Grey was a football fan - and football in his day meant either soccer or rugby. In Canada a form of rugby was the preferred game, so when the first Grey Cup was offered in 1909, it was for the amateur rugby football championship of Canada.

But the Canadian game of rugby football that was played then had already undergone a confusing evolution. In the early 1870s, most teams played 15 men to a side. In 1874, McGill University was invited to play two games of football against Harvard University, but because of absences from their lineup, McGill could only take 11 players. The teams played the Harvard rules-a game of soccer- for the first game, and McGill's rugby for the second. The eleven man rugby game interested the Harvard players. From that visit by the Canadian side, American football, 11 players a side, began its own development. This would in turn effect the Canadian game over the years.

Back in Canada, rugby changed to become more interesting to spectators. In 1902, the Ontario Rugby Football Union adopted an American snap-back system, 12 a side teams, and the provision that teams make ten yards on three downs or surrender the ball. Many of the later changes resulted from the importation of American coaches into the increasingly heated competitions played between university clubs and between city-based clubs like the Toronto Argonauts, Hamilton Tigers, and Ottawa Senators.

During the 1930s, when amateurs still ruled the sport, small centres like Sarnia could still challenge big city teams: Sarnia won the Grey Cup in 1934 and '36. But the bigger cities had the financial resources to import more American college stars, and when the forward pass entered the game, the American style, with American quarterbacks, began to dictate the style of the game. The last amateur Grey Cup happened during the Second World War. In 1942, the Toronto RCAF Hurricanes beat the Winnipeg RCAF Bombers 8-5. At a reunion, one player remembered that his pay for the game was "$15, two pounds of butter and a pound of tea."

After the war, Canadian football resumed its march toward professionalization, but the post-war years also saw Canadian football reach its greatest popularity. Part of the appeal came from the Grey Cup competition itself. When Calgary fans rode their horses and pulled chuckwagons into the lobby of the Royal York Hotel, easterners and all Canadians recognized that "Grey Cup Fever" meant something new. Great years of East-West rivalry and frenzied local support followed.

Professional football in Canada became firmly established when the Canadian Football League was formed in the 1950s, partly in response to the popularity of the National Football League in the US. The leagues competed for TV viewers, and the Canadian game relied more and more on US players and strategies. Ottawa's Russ Jackson - a Canadian quarterback - was already a rarity when he led the Rough Riders to Grey Cup victory in the late 60s. Since then, the CFL has lost some teams, opened and closed franchises in the U.S., and struggled to survive. For many fans, though, the Canadian rules, which favour wide-open offenses and unpredictable plays, is still the better brand of football. The tightly contested Grey Cups, in contrast to the blowout Superbowls, seems to prove this.

In the meantime, the sports that gave rise to Canadian football -soccer and rugby - have re-emerged in popularity. Soccer, always a favourite in many of the immigrant communities that blossomed in post-war Canada, has replaced hockey as the number one team sport for boys and for girls. Professional soccer has begun to take hold in Canada and the United States as well. Rugby also has its fans and players, particularly in universities.