Canadian Football League
After leaving Iowa, head coach Bud Grant brought Kenny Ploen to Canada to play quarterback for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers from 1957 to 1967. He also filled in at halfback and safety. Ploen led his team to six Grey Cup appearances (1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1965), including four victories: 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 and two losses: 1957, 1965. In the 49th Grey Cup game (1961), he scored one of the most memorable touchdowns in professional football history, eluding numerous defenders on an eighteen yard run into the endzone during overtime to win it (see video below). He was voted the 1961 Grey Cup Most Valuable Player, was selected as a divisional All-Star three times.
Kenny Ploen was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1975, the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 1987, the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1997, and the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2005, Ploen was named one of the Blue Bombers 20 All-Time Greats.
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Famous quotes containing the words canadian, football and/or league:
“We’re definite in Nova Scotia—’bout things like ships ... and fish, the best in the world.”
—John Rhodes Sturdy, Canadian screenwriter. Richard Rossen. Joyce Cartwright (Ella Raines)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)