The 51st Grey Cup took place on November 30, 1963, at Empire Stadium in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, and decided the

Canadian Football League The Canadian Football League (CFL; french: Ligue canadienne de football—LCF) is a professional sports league in Canada. The CFL is the highest level of competition in Canadian football. The league consists of nine teams, each located in a ci ...

(CFL) champion for the 1963 season. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats defeated the

BC Lions The BC Lions are a professional Canadian football team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Lions compete in the West Division of the Canadian Football League (CFL), and play their home games at BC Place. The Lions played their first seas ...

21–10, in front of 36,545 spectators. The game is best remembered for a controversial sequence involving American players

Angelo Mosca Angelo Valentino Mosca (February 13, 1937 – November 6, 2021) was an American professional football player and professional wrestler. He was a defensive lineman in the Canadian Football League (CFL). As a wrestler, Mosca was known by the ni ...

and

Willie Fleming Willie Fleming (born February 2, 1939) is a former professional Canadian football player with the Canadian Football League's BC Lions. Fleming played collegiately as a halfback at the University of Iowa, where he was a member of the Hawkeyes' ...

. Mosca was accused of kicking Fleming's head while the latter laid on the field. Fleming left the game, leading to a long-standing grudge between alumni of both teams. In 2011, Mosca and former Lions quarterback

Joe Kapp Joseph Robert Kapp (born March 19, 1938) is an American former football player, coach, and executive. He played college football as a quarterback at the University of California, Berkeley. Kapp played professionally in the Canadian Football Lea ...

had a physical altercation regarding the play at a CFL Alumni Association charity luncheon. After both players traded words, event host Ron James invited both players to make a peace gesture. Kapp jokingly presented Mosca with an ornament flower he had picked at his table. When Mosca emphatically refused it, Kapp tried to shove it in his face. Mosca swung his cane at Kapp in retaliation, hitting him in the head. An irate Kapp then knocked Mosca down to the floor with a pair of punches and kicked him, before turning to the stunned attendance and shouting "Sportsmanship! That's what it's all about folks, sportsmanship." The event was captured on video by one of the attendees and became the object of significant media attention, in particular because of the 48-year gap between the original play and the altercation that stemmed from it. At the time of the incident, Kapp and Mosca were both 73. ''

Monday Night Football ''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, A ...

'' aired the fight footage in a pre-game segment, and Mosca appeared on ''Dr. Phil'' to discuss the feud. Kapp emphatically declined to appear. The cane used by Mosca in the fight was auctioned for charity in 2012, and sold for CDN$7,700. Because of Mosca's second career as a

professional wrestler Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...

for such promotions as NWA Georgia and the then- WWF, it has been suggested that the confrontation may have been staged as a

publicity stunt In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utilize ...

for Mosca's upcoming biography ''Tell It To My Face''. However, these claims remain unsubstantiated.

External links

* Grey Cup Grey Cup Grey Cup 51 Grey Cups hosted in Vancouver 1963 in British Columbia BC Lions 1960s in Vancouver 1963 in Canadian television November 1963 sports events in Canada {{Canadianfootball-competition-stub