Winnipeg Blue Bombers

To celebrate the 100th Grey Cup Game this year, Canada Post has issued a full roster of team stamps, plus one to honour the cup itself.

Logos of the Canadian Football League™ teams grace a choice of eight different PERMANENT™ domestic coils. Exceptional games or events, one per team, are captured on commemoratives available in booklets of ten. Finally, a single stamp spotlighting the cup itself is also available.

According to stamp design manager Liz Wong, when you’re producing an issue that includes 17 stamps, ten Official First Day Covers, collectible strips from coils and more (see pages 8 to 23 for all the stamps and collectibles available) you need everyone to be moving the ball in the right direction. The stamps were designed by Bensimon Byrne, the official advertising agency for the CFL®. The agency also provided the written content for the booklets and OFDCs. According to Wong, “Working with a creative team that knew the CFL—and the history of the teams—was instrumental in producing an issue of this scale. Securing the rights and permissions alone was a huge undertaking, but we were lucky to have both the right players in place and the support of the CFL along the way. That made things go smoothly.”

In addition to giving collectors who love sports stamps a real “field” day, Canadian consumers and businesses can show where their football loyalties lay and kick off the season by using their team stamp on their mailings.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers*

Founded in 1930.
Grey Cup Wins: 1935, 1939, 1941, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1984, 1988, 1990.

Winnipeg has been competing for the Grey Cup® since 1930, and in 1935, the “Winnipeg’s” were the first Western team to win the Grey Cup. In 1936, fans happily seized on to the current name of the franchise after journalist Vince Leah refitted the nickname of famous boxer Joe Louis (the Brown Bomber) and wrote “These are the Blue Bombers* of western football.”

From the mid-1930s to the late 40s, the Blue Bombers were a football force to be reckoned with, appearing in the championship game ten times and winning three Grey Cup trophies.

However, the true glory years of the franchise would arrive in the 1950s, when the team boasted legendary players like Ken Ploen, Leo Lewis, Ernie Pitts and Charlie Shepard. After a Grey Cup loss in 1957, the Blue Bombers would go on to dominate the League by winning four championships in the next five seasons.

In the 50th Grey Cup, Winnipeg faced Hamilton at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium, in a game that would forever be remembered as the Fog Bowl of 1962. As play went on, fog began to roll in from Lake Ontario, settling on the field in the second quarter. Visibility got worse and worse for players, more than 32,000 fans in the stands, and millions watching on TV. With nine minutes to play in the fourth quarter, Commissioner G. Sydney Halter pulled the plug on the game with Winnipeg leading 28-27. After playing out the rest of the fourth quarter the next day, there was no further scoring and Winnipeg claimed the only Grey Cup Game to be played over two days.

The mid-80s and early 90s were great years for Blue Bomber fans, as coach Cal Murphy guided the team to three Grey Cup victories, one in 1984, as head coach, and wins in 1988 and 1990 as General Manager.

With legendary players like Milt Stegall, Dieter Brock, Bob Cameron and Herb Gray, more than 80 years of thrilling Winnipeg football shows no signs of slowing down, and Blue Bomber fans look forward to more memorable performances on the field.

® Registered trade-mark of the Canadian Football League
™ Trade-mark of the Canadian Football League
* Trade-marks of the respective Canadian Football League teams, used under license.