BC Lions

Before the Lions

Compared to the rest of the country, senior football arrived late in British Columbia. Rugby unions had been organized in all of the Prairie provinces by 1907 and the Western Canada Rugby Football Union had been formed in 1911.

However, it was not until 1926 (after the sudden collapse of the Western Hockey League) that the British Columbia Rugby Football Union was formed, and not until 1930 that the BCRFU competed to represent the West in the Grey Cup. The black and orange Vancouver Meralomas were the most successful British Columbian team of the era. They played in the Western Final in 1930 and again in 1934, only to lose on both occasions to the Regina Roughriders of the Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union.

The BCRFU stopped challenging for the Grey Cup following the formation of the Western Interprovincial Football Union. After the BCRFU disbanded in 1941, the Vancouver Grizzlies joined the WIFU. They played only one season, finishing 1–7, before the WIFU suspended operations for the duration of the Second World War. The Grizzlies did not return after the war.

Origin of the Lions

In 1951, a group led by Ken Stauffer and Tiny Radar were inspired by Vancouver Sun columnist Andy Lytle's article to start a new football team in Vancouver that would play in the WIFU. The ownership group sent Radar and Orville Burke to represent them at the off-season WIFU meetings to initiate Vancouver's bid for a team. Radar and Burke were told to return to the meetings the following year with a $25,000 good-faith bond if they could generate sufficient interest in the Vancouver area. The first meetings were held at the Arctic Club in November and a committee headed by Burke and Harry Spring of the Meraloma Rugby Club, set out to sell memberships for $20 each.

Though Burke, Vic Spencer, and John Davidson offered the good-faith bond to the WIFU in 1952, the idea of having a Vancouver team was rejected when both Winnipeg and Saskatchewan voted against the idea of a fifth team. The group in Vancouver, however, did not give up their efforts to have a franchise in the WIFU.

On January 22, 1953, the first annual meeting of the club was held, and Arthur E. Mercer was confirmed as the club's first president. Later in the year, Mercer, Bill Morgan, Bill Ralston, and Whit Matthews went back to the WlFU meetings. One of the founding members included Indo-Canadian businessman, Jab Sidhoo. This time, they sold the idea of a fifth Western team, and Vancouver was granted a conditional franchise. They were required to provide a 15,000-seat stadium, sell at least 6,500 season tickets, and guarantee travel expenses for the visiting teams.

All the pieces began to fall into place when it was announced that Vancouver would host the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. That entailed the building of Empire Stadium, which seated 32,300 people and would be more than suitable for the new WIFU team once the Games concluded. By Easter of 1953, Annis Stukus was then lured away from the Toronto Argonauts to return to the West to become the first public relations manager, general manager, and head coach of the franchise.

Naming the team

During the rest of 1953, a fan contest was held by all of the local media to pick the new team's name. Lions was chosen because it represented a local landmark and legend of the area. The Lions are twin mountain peaks that rise northwest of Vancouver, and according to legend, resemble two mountain lions (cougars) guarding the city.

After the name was chosen, Stukus decided that the team should represent and embrace the entire province of British Columbia, introducing the team to the Canadian football world as the British Columbia Lions or "BC Lions" for short.

Native to BC, the mountain lion has a strong connection to team's brand, as it is renowned for speed, courage and strength, and carefully respected as a remarkable, but dangerous predator. The new team's logo combined this animal with the black and orange colours of the Meralomas.