Paul Woods: CFL 1994-Week 1: Baltimore Stallions @ Toronto Argonauts

Source:The New Democrat

The first Canadian Football League game ever for the City of Baltimore, Maryland, which was starving for major league pro football again to the point they would take a CFL franchise to show they can and will support good pro football. This is not a shot at the CFL, of which I'm actually a fan and watch their games in America, but Baltimore is one of the greatest pro football cities in North America, with a long proud rich tradition. It is the only city to win the NFL Championship, including three Super Bowls, the United States Football Championship in 1985 with the Stars, and the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup in 1995 which you could make the case was the North American gridiron pro football championship in 1994 and 1995. The Baltimore Stallions played both games against the Vancouver Lions in 1994 and the Calgary Stampeders in 1995.

1994-95 was the final chapter in the Baltimore journey to be an NFL city, again by not only getting the Stallions as an CFL expansion franchise, but supporting them very well, and I believe they even led the CFL in attendance. Keep in mind an American franchise leading the Canadian Football League in attendance, but they wanted the NFL back in Baltimore so much that they would support another style of gridiron football from another country.

Thanks to the CFL and football fans of Baltimore and the State of Maryland in general and perhaps the Delmarva area and Southern Pennsylvania, Baltimore proved that they were an NFL-caliber market again after losing the Colts in 1984 and losing out on NFL expansion in 1993, that the NFL was losing money by not having a franchise in this great football city and market, and that the State of Maryland deserved its own NFL franchise again as well.  Now it has two:  the Ravens and the Redskins, who play about 40 miles apart from each other.