84th Grey Cup

84th Grey Cup

File:96 logo.gif
Quarter 1 2 3 4 Tot Toronto Argonauts 0 27 3 13 43 Edmonton Eskimos 9 14 0 14 37
Date	November 24, 1996
Stadium	Ivor Wynne Stadium
City	Hamilton
Most Valuable Player	Doug Flutie, Toronto
Most Valuable Canadian	Mike Vanderjagt, Toronto
National Anthem
Coin toss
Halftime show
Attendance	38,595
TV in Canada
Network	CBC, RDS
Announcers	(CBC) Steve Armitage, Mark Lee, Brian Williams, Glen Suitor, Brenda Irving
Television viewers

The 84th Grey Cup, also known as The Snow Bowl, was the 1996 Grey Cup Canadian Football League championship game played between the Toronto Argonauts and the Edmonton Eskimos at Ivor Wynne Stadium in Hamilton, Ontario. The Argonauts won the game by a score of 43-37.

Game Summary

(November 24th) Blowing snow and swirling winds weren't enough to stop Doug Flutie on Sunday.

Flutie quashed talk that he couldn't play in cold weather Sunday, scoring a touchdown and keeping the CFL's top defence off balance in leading the Toronto Argonauts to an exciting 43-37 Grey Cup win over the Edmonton Eskimos.

It was the second-highest scoring Grey Cup game, next to Saskatchewan's 43-40 win over Hamilton in 1989.

Flutie, who was the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player this season, was also named the game's top performer. Teammate Mike Vanderjagt, who booted five field goals, was voted they Grey Cup's Most Valuable Canadian.

Edmonton pulled to within 33-30 on Eric Blount's five-yard touchdown run with seven minutes remaining. The Eskimos remained in the game because Toronto receiver Jimmy Cunningham dropped certain touchdown passes in the third and fourth quarters.

But Flutie marched Toronto 71 yards, including a controversial third-down gamble in which the ball came loose, setting up Vanderjagt's 27-yard field goal at 13:26.

Toronto's Adrion Smith iced the win, returning a Danny McManus interception 49 yards for a touchdown with 1:22 remaining. McManus threw a league-leading 27 interceptions this season.

McManus hit Marc Tolbert with a seven-yard touchdown pass at 14:51 to round out the scoring, but Toronto recovered the onside kick to end the threat.

The Grey Cup win was Toronto's first since 1991.

Tractors had to remove snow from the field prior to the game, as well as at halftime as the white stuff fell throughout the contest. The temperature at game time was minus 10 C, with 20 kilometre-an-hour winds.

Neither team had problems with footing, and amazingly there were no turnovers. At one point, Toronto scored on five successive possessions.

The dismal weather didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the raucous gathering of 38,595, which was the biggest ever at Ivor Wynne Stadium but still 1,805 short of a sellout. It was also the smallest announced Grey Cup attendance since 32,454 attended the 1975 game in Calgary.

Robert Drummond and Cunningham had Toronto's touchdowns. Vanderjagt had the converts and four field goals.

Jim Sandusky, Henry "Gizmo" Williams and Eddie Brown had Edmonton's touchdowns. Sean Fleming added the converts, but missed three field goals. The Eskimos recorded a safety.

Toronto led 27-23 at halftime as big plays were the order of the day. The teams combined for 41 points in the second quarter alone, with Toronto tying a Grey Cup record with 27 points in the quarter.

Williams returned a kickoff a Grey Cup-record 91 yards for a touchdown in the second after Cunningham took a punt 80 yards for a TD, two shy of the record Baltimore's Chris Wright set last year.

Edmonton's Danny McManus had touchdown passes of 64 and 75 yards to Brown and Sandusky, respectively.

It was the Argonaut's first Cup win since 1991. Ironically, they did it in the stadium that had often been called "Never Win" by the Argo fans due to the team's consistent failure to beat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at that venue.

Preceded by 83rd Grey Cup

Grey Cup games

Succeeded by 85th Grey Cup