September 21 Crowd Reacts

Here is what happened in Sports History on September 21 that made a Canadian crowd go wild as their Quarterback heard the Roar of the Crowd.

Let's flashback to 1997 in the Canadian Football League, The Calgary Stampeders entered the week of play on the outside looking in of the playoff race as they were sporting a 6-6 record. Their game played on September 21 was against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. All of the other Western CFL teams had lost so this was an important step for the Stamps to take if they wanted a shot at the postseason.

With 3:28 left to play thing were looking grim for Calgary though. The Ti-Cats had just intercepted Calgary QB Jeff Garcia for the third time on the day and were loking to finish off the Stampeders. Hamilton signal caller Anthony Calvillo took the ball into the endzone to put the Ti-Cats up late.

But that is when Garcia brushed off his earlier errors and took control of the game. Calgary moved the ball and sparked by a 33 yard grab by a leaping Allen Pitts over a defender. The offense had the Stamps in business and worked the clock and the ball deep in Hamilton territory. Finally with the ball resting on the one yard line, Jeff Garcia powered across the stripe on a QB sneak with 28 ticks of the clock remaiming to give the Stampedered a 25-21 victory.

The win propelled the Stampeders into the playoffs with a 10-8 record but unfortunately the Saskatchewan Roughriders knocked them out in round one by the score of 33-30. The Roughriders would win their way through the West to face the Toronto Argonoauts in the Grey Cup. But the Boatmen would prove to be too much and win the CFL crown.

The banner photo is of Canadian football icon simple by CFCF.

A Very Special thanks to information obtained from the following brilliant internet sites: Newspapers.com, On This Day Sports, the Sports Reference's family of website databases & Stathead.com