The legendary 1986 Ticats: No way they were going to lose third straight

From the Archives: As the Hamilton Tiger-Cats prepare to honour the 1986 Grey Cup championship team at Hamilton Stadium this Saturday, we’re revisiting Steve Milton’s feature on the legendary group that brought the Grey Cup back to Hamilton 40 years ago. This story was originally published on June 11, 2025.

A team loaded with Hall of Famers should be in the Hall of Fame.

So that’s where the 1986 Tiger-Cats find themselves today after the Hamilton Sports Hall of Fame announced that the entire team was among the 2025 inductees, and that the squad’s legendary defensive back Less Browne would also be inducted individually.

The official induction will take place during the annual noon luncheon Wednesday Oct. 22 in, appropriately, the fourth-floor Canadian Football Hall of Fame room at Hamilton Stadium.

The ’86 Cats were the stuff of legend but they were desperate not to be the wrong kind of legend. As Hall of Fame defensive lineman Mike Walker told Ticats Audio Network, “We didn’t want to be the second team to lose three Grey Cups in a row.”

They made sure they weren’t, by absolutely hammering the heavily favoured Edmonton Eskimos—this was long before they changed their team nickname to ‘Elks’—39-15 in a Grey Cup they led 29-0 by halftime.

“No way we were losing that,” Walker said. “We were so focused because, remember, that was the third time we were going to be in a Grey Cup. And then, you know, it’s like third time’s a charm.”

The Ticats had lost the Cup in 1984 at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, lost the Cup in 1985 at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium to the BC Lions, and could not abide the indignity of losing a third consecutive national final, in a third different stadium to a third different western team.

The only time a team had dropped three straight Cup games was 30 years and six days earlier when Edmonton won for a third consecutive year against the Alouettes in 1956. And the Cats were determined not to become the second club to have a negative three-peat on their resumé.

“But we had to get to the Grey Cup in order to win it,” Walker quipped.

And that wasn’t easy.

The Ticats finished second at only 9-8-1, a point behind the Argonauts. Cantankerous owner Harold Ballard, who also owned the Maple Leafs, at one point during the season berated the Ticats as “a bunch of overpaid losers.” They started the season 1-4 and switched starters to first-year quarterback Mike Kerrigan who threw more interceptions than touchdowns that season.  Then Browne, who would eventually record the most career interceptions in pro football—anywhere—suffered a knee injury in the final game of the season.

Browne was unavailable for the first game of the Eastern final, which had been converted for only that season back to a two-game total-points format because it was the first year of “crossover” playoffs. The fourth-placed West team was elevated to play in the West semifinals and third-place Montreal was excluded from the Eastern post-season.

While Ivor Wynne Stadium was generally a psychological graveyard for Toronto teams and the Argos had lost by 10 points there three weeks earlier, the Double Blue shocked the Black and Gold and their raucous supporters 31-17 to take a 14-point lead back to Exhibition Stadium where they’d beaten Hamilton twice, narrowly, during the regular season.

“I remember looking around the locker room and we couldn’t believe the score and how that happened on our home turf,” Walker said. “So the whole week after that game, as we were going to play in Toronto, we were so focused.”

Browne suited up for Game 2 but on the opening kickoff he went down again with no one near him. It was obvious it was an ACL tear and he was through for the season. Hamilton had already lost offensive tackle John Malinosky to injury during the pre-game warmup. CFL rosters were much smaller (34) then so the Ticats had no backups in the secondary or offensive line and running back Walter Bender had to play some defence.

Walker remembers looking at his best friend, defensive end Grover Covington, and saying, “’Oh, bro, Less is down. This is a Hall of Famer; Less Browne was a player. So I was, like ‘oh man, we’ve got to play, we’ve got to play.’ The first half was kind of shaky.”

The Argos went up 15-3, so led on aggregate by a whopping 26 points, but triggered by a horribly bad Argo punt snap and Bender’s diving touchdown catch, the Ticats began a comeback.

Kerrigan, who hadn’t played well in the first game got hot and completed 35 passes, at the time the second-most in a post-season game and the Ticats won by 17 points, just two more than they needed to advance to a third consecutive Grey Cup.

“That second half Mike Kerrigan got hot and he started throwing touchdowns all over the place,”  Walker said, “me, Ben (Zambiasi) and Grover started getting after (Argos quarterback) J.C. Watts and it just kept turning. And next thing you know, we won that game.

“Then we went to Vancouver and we were so focused for that game too. It was the CFL and you never know who’s going to win. And we wanted to go in there and, defensively, get after Dunigan.”

That would be future Hall of Famer Matt Dunigan, Edmonton’s starting quarterback, whose backup was Damon Allen, another pivot bound for the Hall of Fame.

But on the first play from scrimmage, Dunigan fumbled, Leo Ezerins recovered and Kerrigan hit Steve Stapler for a touchdown 95 seconds into the game. At the time it was the third-fastest touchdown in Cup history and fastest for an offensive touchdown and the Ticats hadn’t even started with the ball!

Later Jim Rockford, who’d replaced Browne, recovered a blocked punt and rolled into the end zone, ripping his pants so badly he had to bolt into the locker room for new ones.

The Ticats led 17-0 after one quarter and 29-0 at the first half and the game was essentially over.

In that first half the Ticats defence did something that bordered on unbelievable: they limited Edmonton to minus-1 yard of offence.

In that half alone they recovered five fumbles and hurried Allen and Dunigan into four completions. Five of Paul Osbaldiston’s record six field goals came in that half.

Edmonton did eventually show some life but couldn’t score until late in the third quarter and the Cats themselves kept offensive pace on the way to a decisive 39-15 victory and the first Hamilton Grey Cup championship in 14 years.

Kerrigan was the game’s Most Outstanding Player, Osbaldiston rode his record-tying six field goals to Most Outstanding Canadian and Covington, with his record five sacks and a fumble recovery was voted Most Outstanding Defensive Player. The Ticats amassed 10 sacks, still a record, six fumble recoveries, two interceptions and a blocked punt. Zambiasi had six tackles, a sack and two fumble recoveries.

That game was a pinnacle of a strong defensive season for the Cats in which Walker (19.5) and his best friend Covington (20) combined for nearly 40 quarterback sacks.

And the 1986 Ticats, once Harold Ballard’s “overpaid losers,” came home winners…and heroes. The first Ticat team to hoist Earl Grey’s battered beaker for 14 years and the last for the next 13 years.

They’ve become part of local lore. And now they’re part of the local hall of fame. As they should be.