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Way Back Wednesday: 2009

By Ryan Watters (@ryan2tswatters), 01/20/21, 10:00AM PST

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The Raiders are unstoppable

The year was 2009, the final year of the decade and it started on a Thursday.

As the world prepared for a new decade the CJFL was three Conferences strong with a total of 19 teams, one of which seemed head and shoulders above everyone else.

The BC Conference was led by the dominating VI Raiders with Andrew Harris in the backfield.  The Raiders went a perfect 10-0 in the regular season averaging over an incredible 50 points a game and gave up only 10.  They would breeze through the playoffs beating the Okanagan Sun 25-16 and the South Surrey Big Kahaua Rams 49-14 to win the right to host the Canadian Bowl.

In the Prairie Conference that season the Saskatoon Hilltops finished first with a 7-1 record with the Edmonton Wildcats right behind them at 6-2.  In the playoffs the Hilltops just got past the Regina Thunder 30-24 and the Wildcats beat the Calgary Colts 35-20.  The Cats then went on the road and upset the favoured Hilltops in the Conference final 33-20 to win the right to play in the national semi-final game.

Their opponent in that game would be the Ottawa Sooners after they finished in first place with a 6-2 record in the Ontario Conference.  The Sooners had the top defence holding teams to just 13 points a game.  They would beat the London Beefeaters 24-10 and the St. Leonard Cougars 14-11 in the playoffs to win the Conference and the right to host the Wildcats in the national semi-final game.

The Wildcats defence was stifling in that contest holding the Sooners to just five first downs and 77 yards of total offense.   The Cats went onto win 31-3 to set up a rematch of the 2006 Canadian Bowl with the Raiders in Nanaimo.

The night before the Canadian Bowl, Beefeaters head coach Brad Winder was named the CJFL Gordon Currie Coach of the Year, Harris was named the Outstanding Offensive Player of the Year while Aram Eisho of the Hamilton Hurricanes is named the Outstanding Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight season.

The next day in a classic Nanaimo afternoon in November which included rain throughout the game, the hometown Raiders blasted the Wildcats 51-14 in front of 1900 fans to win their second straight national title and third in four years.   At the time the 51 points was the fourth most in Canadian Bowl history.  Also at the time Raiders quarterback Jordan Yantz set a new Canadian Bowl record with five touchdown passes.  

Off the field in 2009, the United States made history when Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President, becoming the first African-American to hold the office.  Meanwhile here in Canada Stephen Harper is Prime Minister.

This was also the year of the H1N1 or Swine Flu global pandemic which was deemed a pandemic in June.  By September China becomes the first country to discover a vaccine.

In October, Microsoft released Windows 7 and the International Olympic Committee awarded Rio de Janeiro the right to host the 2016 Summer Games.

In sports, the Montreal Alouettes came back to beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders 28-27 on a last second field goal after the Riders were flagged for too many men on the field.   Meanwhile in the Super Bowl the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 in Tampa Bay.  Speaking of Pittsburgh, in the NHL the Penguins get by the Detroit Red Wings in seven games to win the Stanley Cup and in baseball the New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series in six games.

At the box office the world is taken over by Avatar on December 18th which goes onto to become the highest-grossing movie at the time. However in the 2009 calendar year Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is the top grossing movie raking in over $400M.    In music the Black Eyed Peas finish at the top of the Billboard Chart with Boom Boom Pow.

That was the year of 2009.