The 43rd

Grey Cup The Grey Cup () is both the championship game of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team playing in the namesake championship of professional Canadian football. The game is contested between the winners ...

game was played on November 26, 1955, before 39,417 football fans at Empire Stadium in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

. The game was the first Grey Cup to be played in Western Canada. The game had typically been played in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

previously, however the then-recently-completed Empire Stadium was the largest venue in the country. In a somewhat related development, the two professional unions (the

Interprovincial Rugby Football Union The East Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League, its counterpart being the West Division. Although the CFL was not founded until 1958, the East Division and its clubs are descended from earlier leagues. T ...

in the east and the

Western Interprovincial Football Union The West Division is one of the two regional divisions of the Canadian Football League (CFL), its counterpart being the East Division. With a few exceptions, a senior men's football championship has been contested in Western Canada since 1911 ...

in the west) had informally agreed to co-ordinate their schedules in a manner which effectively forced the amateur

Ontario Rugby Football Union The Ontario Rugby Football Union (ORFU) was an early amateur Canadian football league comprising teams in the Canadian province of Ontario. The ORFU was founded on Saturday, January 6, 1883, and in 1903 it became the first major competition to ado ...

to withdraw from Grey Cup competition. This made the 1955 championship game the first in which the Western champion had a '' de facto'' automatic berth in the Grey Cup game. In a rematch of the previous year's Grey Cup, the

Edmonton Eskimos The Edmonton Elks are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club competes in the Canadian Football League (CFL) as a member of the league's West Division and plays their home games at Commonwealth Stadium. The E ...

defeated the

Montreal Alouettes The Montreal Alouettes (Canadian French, French: ''Les Alouettes de Montréal'') are a professional Canadian football team based in Montreal, Quebec. Founded in 1946, the team has disbanded twice and been re-established thrice. The Alouettes compe ...

by the score of 34–19.

Box Score

First Quarter Montreal - Single - Bud Korchak missed field goal
Edmonton – TD – Normie Kwong 1-yard run ( Bob Dean convert)
Montreal – TD – Pat Abbruzzi 1-yard run ( Bud Korchak convert)
Montreal – TD –

Hal Patterson Harold Edward Patterson (October 4, 1932November 21, 2011), nicknamed "Prince" Hal, was an American star college basketball player at the University of Kansas, and a professional Canadian football player with the Canadian Football League Montrea ...

41-yard pass from Sam Etcheverry ( Bud Korchak convert) Second Quarter Edmonton – TD – Johnny Bright 42-yard run ( Bob Dean convert)
Montreal – TD –

15-yard pass from Sam Etcheverry ( Bud Korchak convert)
Edmonton – TD – Bob Heydenfeldt 15-yard pass from

Jackie Parker John Dickerson "Jackie" Parker (January 1, 1932 – November 7, 2006) was an American gridiron football player and coach. He was an All-American in college football and professional football player in the Canadian Football League (CFL), playing ...

( Bob Dean convert) Third Quarter Edmonton – TD – Normie Kwong 1-yard run ( Bob Dean convert)
Edmonton – TD – Johnny Bright 3-yard run ( Bob Dean convert) Fourth Quarter Edmonton – Single – Bob Dean missed field goal
Edmonton – FG – Bob Dean 20-yard field goal

Trivia

This was the last professional

Canadian football Canadian football, or simply football, is a Sports in Canada, sport in Canada in which two teams of 12 players each compete on a field long and wide, attempting to advance a Ball (gridiron football), pointed oval-shaped ball into the opposi ...

game with touchdowns valued at five points - the value of this scoring play was changed to six points, thus making it identical with that of its long-standing value in

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

, prior to the start of the following season.

quarterback Sam Etcheverry set a

record with 508 passing yards. Normie Kwong rushed 30 times for 145 yards for

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

. The game was held in

for the first time, and outside of

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

for only the second time. The attendance was a record that would last until 1976. This was the second of 11

clashes between Edmonton and Montreal. The Eskimos have won in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1975, 1978, 1979, 2003 and 2005's overtime thriller. The Larks have prevailed in 1974, the Ice Bowl of 1977, and 2002.

External links

*
film of the 1955 Grey Cup Parade
Grey Cup

Canadian football competitions in Vancouver 1955 in British Columbia Montreal Alouettes postseason Edmonton Elks postseason 1950s in Vancouver 1955 in Canadian television November 1955 sports events in Canada {{Canadianfootball-competition-stub