The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 25

G10WE THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, THURSDAY, JULY 16, 1998 WEST END "wi V- 'v awawMiBraiwig i. 1 A LIlMmMl PIERRE OBENDRAUF, GAZETTE Garbage Bowl veterans and newcomers: from left, Norman Reid, Garnet Robinson George Desypris and Chris Crevier. Garbage Bowl turning 50 Fundraiser veterans remember early years when Jan. 1 game was not as serious DEREK CASSOFF Special to The Gazette The game itself began to take on a different character about 20 years ago, when Montreal West High School disbanded its football program. With their local source of football talent quickly drying up, organizers began looking to surrounding communities to fill their rosters and dropped restrictions that limited entry to high school students.

Today's players come from as far as the West Island and the South Shore and include many who have starred at the CEGEP and university levels. "A lot of the players are better today," said Colin Telfen, a Montreal West native who played in 22 Garbage Bowls. "But the weather- the snow, the wind and the ice brings even the best players down to a certain level." But as the Montreal West roots fade, so do ties with the Garbage Bowl's steep history. Take Kirton Dolphin, a 22-year Garbage Bowl veteran who serves as a player-coach with the Southern Bombers. While he is anxiously awaiting next year's game, it is not so much for sentimental reasons attached to the 50th anniversary, but rather because he wants to avenge last year's loss to the Bombers.

"It's going to be a tough game," he said. "We have to win." For more information on the Garbage Bowl and its 50th anniversary celebrations, call Chris Crevier at 488-0442. weren't the pros." Yet for all the fun they had, many of the veterans of those early games say they are surprised to see that the tradition they began a half-century ago is still going strong. It makes the coming celebrations all the more special, said John Killingbeck, a half-back with the Southern Bombers in 1950. "It's kind of nice to see young people still enjoying the game," he said.

"And it's nice to see how energetic the guys have become on the fundraising side of things." In addition to entertaining spectators for 49 straight years, the Garbage Bowl's players have managed to amass more than $250,000 for assorted children's charities, including Ste. Justine's Hospital, the Mackay Centre and the Starlight Foundation. "It's the biggest fundraising event of the year for the Rotary Club," said Mahesh Sharma, a past president of Montreal West's Westward Rotary Club, to which the Garbage Bowl is affiliated. Crevier, who played in 14 Garbage Bowls starting in 1980, said most of the money is raised prior to the game players sell buttons door-to-door and solicit ads for a program book. The game-day sale of beer and hot dogs caps the coffers.

"We're a very small organization in terms of our power to raise funds," Crevier said. "But if you give a hospital $1,000 or $1,500, that's not chump change for them." be a gala dinner at the Montreal West Town Hall on Nov. 7, which will reunite many of the hundreds of players who have participated in the event, dating back to the days when the game was restricted to students from Montreal West High School. "In the beginning, the game was a bit of a lark, probably concocted by people at a New Year's Eve party," said Norman Reid, who played for the Northern Combines in the second Garbage BowL in 1951. "It was strictly ad hoc back then, a question of a few people calling around to drum up guys who were silly enough to play" Reid, a lineman who tipped the scales at a slight 140 pounds, said he can't remember the score of that game, or even whether his side won or lost, but he does recall playing in long red underwear while the opposing side wore green pajamas.

The field at Montreal West High School (now Royal West Academy) did not have uprights back then; after scoring a touchdown, teams were forced to throw the football into a garbage pail to convert the extra point -hence the name Garbage BowL "It was a more friendly game back then, much less competitive," said Garnet Robinson, a lineman who suited up for the Southern Bombers four times, starting with the inaugural game in 1950. "And back in those days, you could always rely on snow on the ground. It made it difficult to play, but we A mere mention of the term "Garbage Bowl" is often enough to conjure up images of frozen tundra and metre-high snow banks. After all, players and fans are used to less-than-ideal weather conditions at the annual New Year's Day event in Montreal West, which pits the Northern Combines against the Southern Bombers in a spirited battle for football supremacy But it was on a sultry, summer evening in Cote St. Luc on a softball diamond, no less that many of the players who form the backbone of the Garbage Bowl's success out promoting their efforts and those of the many children's charities they support each year.

"We'll get our hands onto any event, as long as we can get enough people to come out," Garbage Bowl president Chris Crevier said of this latest gathering, a friendly soft-ball game against a team of CFCF-12 employees. "It's important for us to be in the public eye." That visibility will take on a particularly important role in the coming months, as organizers of the popular event prepare to launch 50th anniversary celebrations that culminate with their jubilee game on Jan. 1, 1999. The centrepiece of the festivities will.