I finally got a hold of this book by Ed Willes which contains 7 chapters and 208 pages. I think for the first time, I will provide a book review.
The full name of this book is
End Zones & Border Wars The Era of American Expansion in the CFL, written by Province columnist Ed Willes. But contrary to the title, it mentions a lot more than the American expansion and there is definitely an imbalance of coverage of the CFL teams at the time. Specifically, there's definitely a bias by Willes in that I'd say he talks about the BC Lions about 70% of the time, whereas there are certain teams such as the Sacramento Gold Miners who, despite being the first U.S. based team to enter the CFL in 1993, has limited coverage. A more accurate title would be something like:
BC Lions and the CFL in the mid-1990's.
Chapter 1 has a decent recap of the difficulties the league faced starting in the late 1980's resulting in many teams to be privatized by being bought by private owners, specifically Pezim for the Lions and Bruce McNall for the Argonauts. It then mentions how Larry Smith was brought in as commissioner as the savior for the league.
Chapter 2 starts with the USA expansion in 1993, but then goes back in time to 1991 in great detail of the purchase of the Argonauts by Bruce McNall, John Candy, and Wayne Gretzky and the huge difficulties that the team faced after winning the 1991 Grey Cup with McNall running into personal financial difficulty. It also explains how Dunigan asked for a huge raise after winning the Grey Cup but Argonauts management was far behind what he was asking for. 1992 was a terrible season for the Argonauts this is an accurate statement:
Rickey Foggie replaced Dunigan as the Argos' quarterback and quickly proved why he's been a career backup.
Chapter 3 is okay with more information on the expansion, but mostly about the team from Baltimore.
But starting in chapter 4, it the start of essentially all BC Lions for the next two chapters. It starts about how Bill Comrie bought the Lions in September 1992 and rebuilt the 3-15 team and mentions a lot about Pezim's financial difficulties and also how he would often interrupt Bob O'Billovich's meetings. Every Lions' fan was disappointed why Doug Flutie couldn't be re-signed after 1991. Here's the reason:
By '92 his stock holdings were in a down cycle and the Lions' owner could no longer afford Flutie's US $375,000 salary. Ryckman, who'd bought the Stampeders the year before, swept in and signed Flutie to a personal-services contract that topped out a million per. Good information on the re-build of the Lions by obtaining key players at various positions. And an excellent, detailed summary of both the 1994 WDSF and WDF. Willes details the 1994 WDF in great detail about how the Lions trailed 17-7 but then fought back to actually lead 21-17 before Calgary took the lead again 24-21 at halftime.
In the past, I'd often mention Kent Austin vs. Danny McManus. This book clearly explains that in the Lions' locker room, all players preferred McManus over Austin at QB:
McManus was also utterly fearless on the field and never once *beeotch* or complained about the travel or the weather conditions or the crummy locker rooms or any of the other realities of life in the CFL. This set him apart from Austin, who could be a prima donna. During that season, several of the receivers came to Browne, who was know to have Ritchie's ear, and told the cornerback they wanted McManus to be the starter. The weren't the only ones. And according to Sean Millington:
In my opinion, the team was behind Danny Mac. You could just feel the team waiting for Danny to get in the game. There was a perceptible change in the dynamics. It's not a comment on Kent. I just felt Danny brought a different chemistry to the huddle.
One possible mistake is that Willes said with the score 34-21, McManus hit Darren Flutie with a 49-yard touchdown strike to cut the lead to six. But from what I recall, it was only a 5-yard TD strike in that particular play. And an obvious mistake was Willes misspelled receiver Matt Clark with Matt Clark
e. There was indeed a Matt Clark
e on the Lions roster as well, but he was the long snapper and not the receiver that Willes mentions a few times.
Chapter 5 is all about the 1994 Grey Cup - before, during, and after. And when I say after, Willes clearly mentions the two post-game fiasco incidents. First the fans storming the field and prevented the on-field Grey Cup presentation. And then the MVP and MVC award selection mistakes. Millington was still mad after 18 years later:
They gave the truck to a defensive playe ron the losing team. How does that make sense? There's a reason you lost. Figure it out. In my opinion, Baltimore made a big stink adn they changed the vote to pacify them. But I sure hope that winning the 2000 MVC softened his anger and sadness.....somewhat.
Chapter 6 mentions the difficulties and eventual foldings of all the American teams in 1995. An excellent example involved Matt Dunigan and the Birmingham Barracudas with whom he signed a 3-year deal for a total $2.9 million. Dunigan received $1.2 million, but the team owner was refused to pay the remaining about because he lost $9 million. Dunigan eventually had to take the owner to court in order to receive his remaining $1.7 million. The remaining chapter mentions the 1995 Grey Cup but it only mentions it in a few paragraphs and it's only about 10% in detail compared to what he wrote about the 1994 Grey Cup.
The final chapter 7 summarizes the difficulties that all the CFL owners including Bill Comrie:
Sixteen months after the team's stirring '94 Grey up victory, BIll Comrie let it be known he wanted out as the Lions' owner. Comrie, and Edmontonian, had bought the Leos out of a sense of duty in 1992 and never intended to be the team's permanent caretaker. He's also lost an estimated $7.5 million over his three years in Vancouver and wanted to turn it over to a local concern. The rest of the chapter mentions the changes the Lions made in the late 1990's, as well as the difficulties in Montreal and the 1996 Grey Cup.
There are two sets of photographs attached in the book. And as the old saying goes, a picture speaks a thousand words and Willes' bias for the Lions is clearly demonstrated. The first section is fairly divided in that it shows players from various teams. But despite a book about American expansion, there's only one example of such an American team with a picture of Mike Pringle in a Stallions in the 1995 GC. There's also a smaller picture of two players from Sacramento Surge of World League in 1992, but not part of the America-based CFL teams. But the second set of pictures of ALL about the BC Lions and all but one of the pictures is about the 1994 Grey Cup game and celebration. These second set of pictures all but seals the deal on how Willes is writing the book entirely biased as a BC Lions fan.
Final verdict: 3.5 stars out of 5. This is a great book for Lions fans especially those who want to re-live the 1994 season and there's decent, informative information the things he did write. But his book is not representative for a fair, unbiased view for all the teams in the CFL league at the time because as indicated, 70% is only about the BC Lions and the remaining involves just some more detailed information about Toronto and Calgary. And there's actually little mention about some of the American-based teams especially especially the Sacramento Gold-Miners who were the first in 1993 and they beat the Lions on both meetings.