Winnipeg Blue Bombers
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are a professional Canadian football team based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Blue Bombers compete in the Canadian Football League as a member club of the league's West division. They play their home games at Princess Auto Stadium.
The Blue Bombers were founded in 1930 as the Winnipeg Rugby Football Club, later changed to the Winnipeg Football Club, which is the organization's legal name. The Blue Bombers are one of two community owned teams, without shareholders, in the CFL.
Since their establishment, the Blue Bombers have won the Grey Cup championship 12 times, most recently in 2021 CFL season when they defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 33–25 in the 108th Grey Cup. The team holds the record for most Grey Cup appearances of any team and Winnipeg were the first club in Western Canada to win a championship.
Team facts
Community ownership
The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are operated by the Winnipeg Football Club. WFC is a not-for-profit community organization incorporated as a Manitoba corporation on March 5, 1951. The object of this organization is the promotion and fostering of football in Manitoba.WFC controls Triple B Stadium Inc., a non-share corporation whose object is to develop, construct, and operate a stadium at the University of Manitoba, Princess Auto Stadium. The stadium is used by WFC, the University of Manitoba Bisons, amateur athletics, and other public purposes.
WFC also controlled Valour FC Inc., whose object was to operate a professional soccer club in Winnipeg, and participated in the Canadian Premier League. The soccer operations were suspended following the 2025 CPL season.
History
Beginnings
The first football team in Winnipeg was formed in 1879, named the Winnipeg Rugby Football Club. On June 10, 1930, the Winnipeg Tammany Tigers, who were in financial difficulty, disbanded and merged with some of the other teams in the city to create the new Winnipeg Rugby Football Club, known unofficially and simply as the Winnipegs or even the shorterIn 1932, the Winnipegs and St. John's joined and adopted blue and gold as their colours. In 1933 they also absorbed the Garrison Rugby Club football team. The Winnipegs played in the Manitoba Rugby Football Union from 1930 to 1935. Prior to the move to Osborne Stadium in 1935, the team played at Carruthers Park, River Park, and Wesley Park.
First Grey Cup Victory
By 1935 Western teams had been to the Grey Cup game 10 times, but they had always gone home empty-handed. The East was much more powerful, outscoring their opponents 236–29 through those ten games. On December 7, 1935, the Winnipegs got their first trip, to the 23rd Grey Cup. The game was being held in Hamilton, with the home-town Tigers their opponents. It was a rainy day at Hamilton Amateur Athletic Association Grounds, with 6,405 fans in attendance.Winnipeg was up 5–0 before many fans had even reached their seats. Hamilton player Jack Craig let the opening kickoff bounce to the turf, and a Winnipeg player promptly recovered the ball at the Hamilton 15-yard line. Winnipeg scored quickly on a Bob Fritz pass to Bud Marquardt to get the early lead. After scoring another touchdown on a Greg Kabat catch in the endzone, Winnipeg went into halftime up 12–4. Their lead was soon cut to three points in the second half after Hamilton scored a touchdown of their own, helped by a blocked kick that placed the ball on the Winnipeg 15-yard line.
Then, after a Hamilton rouge, Winnipeg's Fritz Hanson caught a punt, and after a few moves and a few missed tackles, was on his way to a 78-yard touchdown return, making the score 18–10. Hamilton forced a safety to bring themselves within six points, but failed to cross the goal-line, getting as far as the Winnipeg four-yard line. The final score was Winnipeg 18, Hamilton 12.
With that, Winnipeg had become the first team from Western Canada to win the Grey Cup.
Early days of glory
After the Grey Cup victory in 1935, The Winnipeg Tribune sports writer Vince Leah called the team the "Blue Bombers of Western football". Until then, the team had no official nickname, but they quickly began using "Winnipeg Blue Bombers". Journalist Jim Coleman wrote that the name came at a time when boxer Joe Louis had international success with his similar nickname, the Brown Bomber.In 1935, the Blue Bombers, Calgary Bronks, and Regina Roughriders formed the Western Interprovincial Football Union at the highest level of play in Western Canada. Between 1936 and 1949, the Bombers won the right to compete for the Grey Cup in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, 1943, and 1945. Of these appearances, Winnipeg won only twice: in 1939 over the Ottawa Rough Riders, and again in their 1941 rematch.
Jack Jacobs, known as Indian Jack, was a Creek quarterback from Oklahoma. He came to the Bombers in 1950 after a successful career in the United States. He led the Bombers to two Grey Cup appearances, losing both. His exciting style of play and extreme talent increased ticket sales and overall awareness and popularity of the club. The revenue the Bombers were getting from their newfound popularity was enough to convince them to move from the small, outdated Osborne Stadium to the new Winnipeg Stadium. Jacobs was so well-liked that fans even referred to the new stadium as "The House that Jack Built". Jacobs retired in 1954 to become a talent scout for the team.
In 1951, Jack Jacobs became the first professional football quarterback to throw for over 3,000 yards in a season, with 3,248. That year, he was also the first professional football quarterback to throw for at least 30 touchdowns, with 33. The next year he bested that mark with 34.
Bud Grant era
joined the team in 1953 after a two-year stint with the Philadelphia Eagles, as one of numerous NFL players lured to Canada during the first part of the decade for then-better salaries. After a four-year career as a receiver, he accepted the position of head coach of the Bombers in 1957. Grant went on to coach the team for the next 10 years before becoming the head coach of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings.In 1956, Blue Bombers fans named Labatt's Pilsener Lager, which had a blue label, Labatt Blue, in honour of their team. In 1958, the Blue Bombers joined the newly formed Canadian Football League, and have competed there since.
During Grant's tenure as head coach, the Bombers welcomed the likes of Ken Ploen, Leo Lewis, Farrell Funston, Ernie Pitts,
Charlie Shepard, and Ed Kotowich to the team. The Bombers competed in six Grey Cup games during Grant's tenure, winning four. In 1961, the Bombers won 21–14 over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the first Grey Cup game to go into overtime. The Bombers and Ticats met again in the 1962 Grey Cup, with the game being postponed with 9:29 left in the fourth quarter due to zero visibility in the famous "Fog Bowl". The game resumed the next morning, with the Bombers winning 28–27.
During the second half of the 1960s, the Bombers' domination gave way to lean years, with four seasons of double digits in the loss column. The team bounced back in the early 1970s with the likes of quarterback Don Jonas, running-back Mack Herron, and wide receivers Jim Thorpe and Bob LaRose. The team finished first in the Western Conference in 1972, the first time it had done so since 1962. However, the Bombers came up short in the Western final against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, squandering a 13-point third-quarter lead en route to a heartbreaking 27–24 loss, with Saskatchewan kicker Jack Abendschan scoring on a short field goal attempt on the last play of the game to send the 'Riders to the 1972 Grey Cup against Hamilton. The 1972 season was also the last time the team finished first in the West until the 2021 season. The team struggled for a few more seasons under coaches Jim Spavital and Bud Riley before Ray Jauch was brought in as head coach before the 1978 season. Under Jauch, the Bombers became one of the stronger teams in the West, but usually behind Jauch's former team, the powerhouse Edmonton Eskimos coached by Hugh Campbell.
In 1981, wide receiver Eugene Goodlow became the first CFL player to reach the century mark in receptions in a season. Goodlow caught 100 passes for 1,494 yards and 14 touchdowns. That season, the Bombers became one of the first teams to have three receivers with at least 1,000 yards in a season: Goodlow with 1,494, Joe Poplawski with 1,271, and Rick House with 1,102.
Cal Murphy era
In 1983, Cal Murphy was hired to be the new head coach of the Blue Bombers. Almost immediately, Murphy set the tone for his career with the Bombers by trading popular QB Dieter Brock at midseason to Hamilton in exchange for QB Tom Clements. Trading Brock turned out to be a wise decision; Clements led the Bombers to a crushing victory in the 1984 Grey Cup, coincidentally over the Brock-led Tiger-Cats. This was Winnipeg's first Grey Cup in 22 years, and also their last win and appearance in the championship game as the Western representative until their victory in the 107th Grey Cup. Murphy was named coach of the year in both 1983 and 1984.In 1987, Murphy stepped down as head coach to become general manager, and assistant coach Mike Riley took over head-coaching duties. Then, just prior to the start of the 1987 season, the Montreal Alouettes folded. With the East Division suddenly down to three teams compared to five in the West, the league moved the Blue Bombers into the East Division, to balance the league.
Under Riley, the Blue Bombers quickly made an impact in the East, winning Grey Cups over their former division rivals B.C. and Edmonton in 1988 and 1990 respectively, and garnering Riley the coach of the year award in both championship seasons. After Riley left, Darryl Rogers and Urban Bowman each led the team for a season until 1993, when Cal Murphy took over head-coaching duties again. Murphy went on to lead the team to a total of five Grey Cup appearances, winning as a coach in 1984, and as GM in 1988 and 1990. He left the club after the 1996 season, having spent 14 years with the team. Later, he coached the Saskatchewan Roughriders in 1999.
Winnipeg played a total of eight consecutive seasons in the East before moving to the newly created North Division in 1995 during the CFL's expansion to the United States. When the CFL's American experiment ended a year later, and the Alouettes were re-established, the Blue Bombers returned to the re-constituted West Division. This arrangement also lasted only one season, as Winnipeg returned to the East again for the 1997 season after the Ottawa Rough Riders ceased operations.