Today's Tidbit... The Canadian Rugby / Football Pants Mystery

It is Grey Cup week, so all football fans should anticipate spending Sunday evening watching the Toronto Argonauts attempt to keep the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from winning a third consecutive Grey Cup. I’m cheering for the Blue or the Double Blue!

While there have been and remain differences between American college and professional football, the games have always been highly similar. Today’s American and Canadian football games are also quite similar in the grand scheme, but the two had more differences in the past as the northern game remained more rugby-like into the 1920s and 1930s. These differences cause me to ask the oddball question: Why did Canadian rugby/football teams of the 1920s wear a different pant style than those in the States?

For background, Canadian rugby was still rugby-like in 1909 when the Hamilton Tigers and Ottawa Rough Riders played an exhibition game in New York City. As seen below, their kit, including their pants, resembles the lightly padded gear American football players wore in the 1880s when the Yanks still played rugby.

(Harper’s Weekly, December 1909)