Gridiron America Radio

The eighth chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca

Following the 1965 All-Star Game in Vancouver, a plane carrying five players crashed, killing everyone on board. The tragedy sent shockwaves through the league that can still be felt to this day as the descendants of one of the athletes retrace the footsteps of the fateful flight.

It had been almost 29 years to the day since the Winnipeg Blue Bombers hoisted the Grey Cup, this was not lost on Bombers fans who had endured three decades of heartbreak, but there was something different about the 2019 Blue Bombers. Every time they've faced adversity, they had been able to keep moving forward and with a never-say-die attitude ended their championship drought. Here is their journ...

A 14-year CFL standout, Matt Dunigan is one of the CFL's most accomplished and celebrated players. In 2006, Dunigan received the CFL's highest honor with his induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and was also named one of the TSN Top 50 CFL Players of the modern era.  Dunigan played with six CFL teams throughout his professional career: Edmonton Eskimos (1983-1987), B.C. Lions (19...

Known as "The Golden Arm," Johnny Unitas is considered to be one of the best and toughest quarter backs to ever play. As a member of the Baltimore Colts, he played in what is arguably the greatest game in American pro football history. In 1958, he led his team to a championship in the first overtime and first nationally-televised American championship game.

During his 19-year CFL career, Anthony Calvillo never talked a lot about his past. It was known the Canadian Football League’s all-time passing leader grew up in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles and that he chose football over a life of street gang crime, but over the years he gave few details of just how difficult it was. Director Shelley Saywell’s documentary “The Kid From La Puente” shows bo...

The seventh chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca  

The sixth chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca  

The Photograph focuses on a picture of the 1942 Toronto Royal Canadian Air Force Hurricanes, a team that inspired a nation en route to winning the first ever non-civilian Grey Cup game. On Dec. 5, 1942, the Hurricanes beat the Winnipeg RCAF Bombers 8-5 in front of a sellout crowd on a frozen field at Toronto’s Varsity Stadium, boosting the country’s morale during the Second World War while thousan...

Through the turbulent decade of the 1960s, which was defined in American by assassinations, the Space Race, the Vietnam War, and the struggle for civil rights and equality, a rebel league took on an established major American sports entity, and not only survived, but thrived, ultimately forcing a merger prior to the 1970 season that helped create the modern-day behemoth American football has becom...

In 1970, professional football in America picked up where it left off in the 1960s, when the game truly started to make the leap as America's No. 1 pastime. This era of pro football saw Dallas, after years of heartbreaking championship defeats, finally break through as champions. The decade also bore witness to the Miami's perfect season, the rise of Oakland's autumn wind and the birth of the Iron...

To quote the dean of football myth making, "I have loved football as an almost mythic game since I was in the fourth grade. To me, the game wasn't even grounded in reality. The uniform turned you into a warrior. Being on a team, the mythology of physical combat, the struggle against the elements, the narrative of the game." That is what the championship chase is all about.

For gridiron fans in Canada, America and everywhere around the world, the game of football is more than X's and O's. It is a sport filled with drama and story, all of which make it more than a game.

A nostalgic look back on the year in which the top tier of modern day American professional football took shape.

The fifth chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca

In their first Grey Cup appearance in 20 years, the 1971 Toronto Argonauts committed a last-second fumble, spoiling their run. Now, the stars of the team reunite to relive the game and the wild days in Toronto.

Western Swagger shares the genesis of an East vs. West rivalry both on and off the football field that reached a fever pitch in November 1981.  As the Edmonton Eskimos embarked on an unprecedented Grey-Cup winning streak, former Eskimo and Alberta Premier, Peter Lougheed, was in a battle off the field with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau over a National Energy Program – the implementation of wh...

The fourth chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca  

The third chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca

Set against a backdrop of violence in Québec in the late ‘60s, quarterback Russ Jackson was determined to win what was destined to be one of the greatest games in CFL history.

The second chapter in a ten part documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca

Doug Flutie was a superhero on the field with the football in his hands, all of which earned him legendary status in Canada in America. He was small, mighty and had the characteristics of a proper role model. Flutie led the Argos to back-to-back Grey Cups in 1996 and 1997 and earned the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player both years. His final professional play, in a career that spanned three leagues, w...

Professional football in America is a special game, a unique game ... It is a rare game. The men who play it make it so. All of them are fearless. All of them are strong, quick. And all of them are part of a story that began long ago. A story written by men who found, in the sport, a demanding measure for their own courage and ability.

The opening chapter in a ten chapter documentary series detailing the history of football and the Canadian Football League through the early 21st Century. The series is also available for viewing at www.cfl-films.ca 

The story of America's CFL champion, the Baltimore Stallions.