The Blue Bombers were presented the inaugural Best Marketing & Ticket Campaign Award at the 2012 CFL Congress for the great marketing campaign that resulted in the football club's great fan support for the 2011 CFL football season.

The Edmonton Eskimos are notable for qualifying for the CFL playoffs every year from 1972 to 2005, a record in North American pro sports.

The potential for the league to enter the American market was discussed in 1987 when operators of the defunct United States Football League approached the CFL about merging the two leagues.

The league added three additional American teams in 1994 and two in 1995 ( with one team folding ), but the initiative failed in most markets, and by 1996, the CFL again operated exclusively within Canada.

Owner Jim Speros ' approach was simple: he knew that Canadian football was different from the American game, and therefore made a point of hiring personnel and players with CFL experience.

* Reducing the size of a CFL field to American football standards.

The most memorable moment for the franchise occurred on July 8, 1994, when the team played the Sacramento Gold Miners in the first ever CFL match involving two American based teams.

However, the deal fell apart when the CFL ended its American experiment after the 1995 season.

However, the CFL decided not to go that route and folded the Mad Dogs, along with most of the other American CFL franchises, after the 1995 season.

* Becoming the first American team to play in the CFL.

* Becoming the first American team to host a CFL game, against the Calgary Stampeders ( losing 38 – 36 ) on July 17.

* Becoming the first American team to record a win in the CFL, against the Saskatchewan Roughriders ( winning 37 – 26 ) on July 24.

( However, they were not the first American team to win against a CFL team -- see below.

The American Football League also played one game in Canada against a CFL team in 1961, with CFL's Hamilton defeating AFL's Buffalo, 38 – 21.

In their second season, the Gold Miners were no longer the lone American team as the CFL introduced three new teams: The Las Vegas Posse, the Shreveport Pirates and the Baltimore Stallions ( who were known as the CFLers when the NFL did not allow the Colts name to be used ).

Since the San Antonio club that was also supposed to be a part of the 1993 expansion had folded, the Gold Miners were the only American team in the CFL during the 1993 season.

Anderson did not want to be the only remaining American CFL owner.

Instead, the Blue Bombers were invited to play the Columbus Bullies of the American Football League of 1940 ; although Columbus won the three-game series, 2 games to 1, the one game Winnipeg won gives them a distinction of being one of only two current CFL teams to have defeated a top-level professional American football team ( the other being the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, who defeated the modern-day Buffalo Bills in a 1961 game ).

He was an American Football League All-Star in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965, making him one of only a few professional football players who made their league's All-Star team for 10 consecutive years ( six in the CFL, and four in the AFL ).

* Richard Harris ( American football ), ( 1948 – 2011 ), former NFL player & CFL coach

* Dickie Harris, ( born 1950 ), American football player in the CFL

* Damon Allen ( born 1963 ), American football player ( CFL )

Errick Lynne " Ricky " Williams, Jr. ( born May 21, 1977 ) is a former American football running back who played for eleven seasons in the National Football League ( NFL ) and one season in the Canadian Football League ( CFL ).

Vince McMahon's original plan was to purchase the Canadian Football League ( after the CFL initially approached him about purchasing the Toronto Argonauts ), while NBC was moving ahead at the time with Time Warner to create a football league of their own.

The NFL's Houston Texans revived the name of the WFL's franchise for that city ; " Texans " has also been used by an NFL Dallas team in 1952 – the remnants of which became the Baltimore / Indianapolis Colts, by an AFL Dallas team in the early 1960s – who became the Kansas City Chiefs, by an arena football team in Dallas in the early 1990s, and by a CFL San Antonio team for one year in the 1990s.

College and high school football, the Arena Football League, and the CFL have always used the one-foot rule.

* Bill Zock ( 1918 – 1988 ), Hall of Fame CFL football player

* Bob Simpson ( Canadian football ) ( 1930 – 2007 ), CFL football player

Bart was a standout running back for the Boise State University Bronco's football team in the late eighties and 1990, and played with Ottawa Rough Riders, Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders in the CFL as well as one season of professional indoor football prior to recurring injuries.

* Tim McCray-Professional football player from 1985-1990 in the CFL

* Kansas Cougars Semi-Pro football, member of CFL

* Jim Trimble, former NFL and CFL head football coach

* Chris Brazzell, a Canadian Football League ( CFL ) Player and ex NFL player, was born May 22, 1976, and played on the Alice High School football team.

Others include Ricky Williams, Bo Jackson, and Damon Allen, each of whom was drafted both by Major League Baseball and by professional gridiron football leagues such as the NFL and the CFL.

* Rick Black, CFL football player, Grey Cup champion

* Eric Lapointe, CFL football player, Hec Crighton Trophy winner

A four-time CFL All-Star and four-time NFL Pro Bowl selection, Garcia began his professional football career with the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League ( CFL ) as an undrafted free agent in 1994.

Traditionalists however, believe the rule changes are the beginning of the removal of the " Ironman " ( two-way offense and defense ) style of play of arena football that the league has actively promoted for 20 seasons, and that removing the " Ironman " style of play takes away a key component of what makes arena football a distinctive sport over other versions of football ( NFL, CFL, other indoor leagues, etc.

( Pardee is perhaps better known as the only six-man football player to have ever made it to the professional leagues ; his knowledge of that wide-open game proved to serve him well in the similarly wide-open CFL.

When the Posse started the 1994 season it was clear that CFL football would not last in Las Vegas.

The CFL traditionally plays on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, when college and high school football teams traditionally play in the United States.