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Edmonton Eskimos

Founded	1949
Based in	Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Home field	The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium
Head coach	Jason Maas
General manager	Brock Sunderland
Owner(s)	"Community" (shareholder) owned
League	Canadian Football League
Division	West Division
Colours	Green, gold, white[1][2]
Nickname(s)	Esks, Eskies, The Double-E
Mascot(s)	Nanook and Punter
Grey Cup wins	14 (1954, 1955, 1956, 1975 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 1982, 1987, 1993, 2003, 2005, 2015)
Website	www.esks.com
Current uniform
2019 Edmonton Eskimos season

The Edmonton Eskimos are a professional Canadian football team based in Edmonton, Alberta, competing in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL). The Eskimos play their home games at The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium and are the third-youngest franchise in the CFL. The Eskimos were founded in 1949, although there were clubs with the name Edmonton Eskimos as early as 1895. The Eskimos are arguably the most successful CFL franchise of the modern era (since 1954), having won the league's Grey Cup championship fourteen times, second overall only to the Toronto Argonauts who have won seventeen. This includes a three-peat between 1954 and 1956 and an unmatched five consecutive wins between 1978 and 1982, and most recently in 2015.

The Eskimos hold a North American professional sports record by qualifying for the playoffs for 34 consecutive years between 1972 and 2005.^[3][4] Edmonton has had the most regular season division championships in the CFL's modern era with 21, with their most recent coming in 2015. The team has a rivalry with the Calgary Stampeders and are one of the three community owned teams currently operating in the CFL.

Team facts

Edmonton Eskimos Wordmark

Founded: 1949, although other teams named the Edmonton Eskimos existed 1895 to 1923 and 1929 to 1939

Formerly known as: The "Esquimaux" 1897 to 1910, the "Elks" in 1922.

Helmet design: Yellow background, with a gold "EE" on a green oval

Uniform colours: Green, gold and white

Past uniform colours: Blue and white (1938 to 1939) and black and yellow (1907 to 1937)

Nicknames: Esks, Eskies, The Double-E

Mascots: Nanook, Punter

Fight Song: Eskimo Fight Song

Stadiums: Clarke Stadium (1949–1978) and The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium (1978–present)

Main rivals: Calgary Stampeders (see Battle of Alberta) and Montreal Alouettes (11 meetings in the Grey Cup, once in the East final).

Western Division 1st place: 23—1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2015

Western Division Champions: 23—1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2015

Grey Cup championships: 14—1954, 1955, 1956, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1987, 1993, 2003, 2005 and 2015

2018 regular season record: 9 wins, 9 losses

Ownership

The Edmonton Eskimos Football Club is one of three "community owned" teams in the CFL (owned by local shareholders). This was once the most common type of ownership in the CFL.^[5] In 2006 the Ottawa Sun reported that shares cost $10 each, but were not open to the general public and required the approval of the 80 existing shareholders.^[6] This contrasts with the Saskatchewan Roughriders, one of the other community owned teams in the CFL, who have offered shares to the public (much in the same way as the NFL's Green Bay Packers do). The Winnipeg Blue Bombers, the other community owned team, operates as a corporation without share capital.

Board of directors

Edmonton Eskimos, Inc., is governed by a ten-member board of directors.^[7] The board consists of a chairman, treasurer, secretary, and seven directors. As of 2017^[update] the board of directors included chairman Brad Sparrow, treasurer Janice Agrios, secretary Murray Scambler, directors Douglas Cox, Rob Heron, Ian Murray, Harold Roozen, Marshall Sadd, Lindsay Dodd and Tom Richards. The club's president and CEO is Len Rhodes,^[8][9] he is not currently a member of the board.

History

Origins of the name

The story of team's name goes back to stories in the press from at least 1903 and possibly as far back as 1892, the first date of a "rugby football" game between Edmonton and Calgary. It is a legacy of the bitter rivalry between the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, the so-called Battle of Alberta. In the early years of sports competition between the cities, the press in each town used colourful nicknames to insult the rival team's home. Edmontonian writers called Calgary "the cow camp", "horse country", or "the little village beside the Bow". Likewise Calgary's responded with insults about Edmonton's northern latitude and frigid weather, calling the city's residents "Esquimaux" (an archaic spelling of "Eskimos", referring to the indigenous people of the Canadian Arctic, properly called Inuit). Despite the fact Edmonton is several thousand kilometres south of the Arctic, the name "had the advantages of alliteration, neatness, uniqueness, and a certain amount of truth," and thus, according to historian of Edmonton Tony Cashman, "it stuck." The name remained an unofficial nickname, however, until the arrival in Edmonton of American baseball coach and sports promoter William Deacon White in 1907. White founded the Edmonton Eskimos baseball team in 1909, the football Eskimos in 1910, and Edmonton Eskimos hockey team in 1911. Of the three, only the football teams' name has survived.

In part because they do not use any native imagery, the Eskimos are rarely mentioned with regard to the Native American mascot controversy. A notable Inuk who openly supported the team name was Kiviaq, also known as Dave Ward, who was briefly a member of the team but was injured before playing in a regular-season game.^[10] However Natan Obed, the President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada's national Inuit organization, has stated that "Eskimo is not only outdated, it is now largely considered a derogatory term" and is a "relic of colonial power".^[11] Former Eskimos player Andre Talbot stated: "Sports organizations need to be community building organizations. And if we're isolating and offending part of that community, then our particular organization or league is not doing its job."^[12] After Inuit singer Tanya Tagaq suggested that a name change would show respect, Paula Simons of the Edmonton Journal wrote an editorial pointing out that "Eskimo is a name that never properly belonged to Edmonton at all, a borrowed, appropriated name that disrespects not just the Inuit people, but also the other First Nations who actually did call this territory home".^[13] However, in 2017 CBC News reported that other Inuit had no objection to the use of Eskimos in the team's name.^[14] The editorial board of the Toronto Star sees a name change as the inevitable result of social evolution.^[15]

Team history

Edmonton played its first series of organized games with the formation of the Alberta Rugby Football Union in 1895. In 1897 the name Esquimaux was adopted. In 1910 the club was officially named the Edmonton Eskimos, with the current incarnation beginning play in 1949. Since 1978 the Eskimos have played their home games in The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium. They are one of the most successful teams in Canadian football history, having won the Grey Cup more than any other team except the Toronto Argonauts, and being the leader in attendance for many years.

The team holds many impressive records, including five consecutive Grey Cup wins (1978–82) and 34 consecutive years in the playoffs (1972–2005); the latter is a record no other North American professional sports team has equalled. Former Eskimos have figured prominently in Alberta political life: past players include two former provincial premiers (Peter Lougheed and Donald Getty), a former mayor of Edmonton (Bill Smith), and a lieutenant-governor (Norman Kwong).

The Eskimos made it to nine Grey Cups in a ten-year span from 1973 to 1982 (the only year they missed the Grey Cup during that time was in 1976). Since Edmonton re-entered the CFL in 1949, only one other team—also Edmonton—has won even three championships in a row (1954–56). The achievements during the Eskimos dynasty were documented in the book, Decade of Excellence, with photographs by Bob Peterson.

As of August 2016, the Eskimos also have had the largest average attendance in the league 27 times since moving to Commonwealth Stadium in 1978.^[16]

Uniform

The Edmonton Eskimos' 2012–2015 uniform combinations

The current uniform colours, green and gold, were adopted when the Eskimos received uniforms from the University of Alberta Golden Bears football team, which was dormant due to a lack of competition at the time the Eskimos began play (in their current incarnation) in 1949. The colours have remained since that time, and the Golden Bears maintain them to this day as well.

Overall, the jersey and colours have remained essentially the same over the years with only minor modifications. In 2001 the Eskimos introduced white pants to be worn with their away jerseys. In the 2005 CFL season all CFL teams switched to a Reebok designed template but the jerseys for the Eskimos stayed much the same. In that same year the Eskimos introduced an alternate jersey for the first time in the franchise's history. Green pants were also introduced at this time and were worn with their home and away jerseys from 2005 to 2015. The alternate gold jersey was last worn in 2007, as they mainly use their green jerseys. Along with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Winnipeg Blue Bombers, they were one of the few teams to alternate the pants and jersey combinations of their uniforms within a season.

Old helmet logo design until 2015

The Eskimos had their jerseys remodelled for the 2012 season and brought back the green helmets that were worn for the Labour Day game and rematch in 2008, and also the 'five-stripe' pattern with the Eskimos' monogram (albeit with the current one in use since 1996) on the sleeve stripes which was used from 1980-95. The green helmets were worn with the away jerseys and marked the first time in franchise history that a helmet other than gold was worn as a regular facet of the uniform. It was also the first time in franchise history that two different helmets were worn for home and away uniforms. The team also stopped alternating pant and jersey combinations during this season, using consistent home and away looks all year long. However, during the following season, on August 24, 2013, the Eskimos returned to the all-green combination of green helmets, jerseys, and pants that had not been worn since 2008.^[17] The Eskimos first wore their gold helmets with their away uniforms for a regular season game on October 19, 2014 and wore them again in the post-season on November 23, 2014 with matching gold pants.^[18][19] Gold helmets were worn with away uniforms in three of eight regular season games in 2015. In 2014, the team introduced their Signature series alternate uniforms, which was the second alternate uniform to be worn in team history (not including throwback jerseys).

With the league switching uniform contracts to Adidas in 2016, the Eskimos again redesigned their uniforms, with the jerseys more closely resembling the simplistic jersey stripe pattern worn from 1996 to 2011.^[20] The white jerseys removed the green side-panelling and the team retired the green helmet. The team also removed shoulder numbers (which are known as TV numbers), which was the first time the team did not have numbers on the shoulder since 1965. For this season, the team wore gold pants for every game played, including with their Signature series alternate uniforms, which were retained following the Adidas redesign.

Wall of Honour

The Eskimos have a policy of honouring the players who have best represented the team on the field. The player's name, number and seasons played with the Eskimos are displayed on the edge of the concrete separating the upper and lower decks of The Brick Field at Commonwealth Stadium. The Eskimos keep the number in circulation rather than retire them from use.

Numbers so honoured as of 2014^[update]:

† Honoured posthumously

Team song

During the break between the 3rd and 4th quarter of each home game fans stand and sing the "Edmonton Eskimos Fight Song" to the tune "Washington and Lee Swing":

We're cheering fight, fight, fight on Eskimos

We're marching right, right, right on Eskimos

We're charging down the field for all to see

and shouting rah, rah, rah, fight on to victory

We're fighting on till every game is won

The Green and Gold is bold and when we're done

we'll tell the world we're proud of Edmonton

and the Edmonton Eskimos!

Current roster

Current coaching staff

Head coaches

General managers

CFL awards and trophies

Mascots

Nanook (a polar bear) and Punter (an anthropomorphic football) are the mascots for the Edmonton Eskimos. They were introduced in 1997 and 2004, respectively.^[21]

See also

• Edmonton Eskimos all time records and statistics


• Canadian Football Hall of Fame


• Canadian football


• Comparison of Canadian and American football


• List of Canadian Football League seasons


• List of fan-owned sports teams

References

External links

• Official website


• Watch Football Story, a 1953 National Film Board of Canada documentary about the Edmonton Eskimos