Joe Montford spent most of his Hall of Fame career, which spanned from 1995–2006, with the Ti-Cats. In 2002, the defensive end briefly switched sides, playing for Toronto. But, he says, “I’ll always have black-and-gold running through my veins.”
“It always seemed like the Argos considered themselves more elite than us. Like Toronto had the finer things in life. We saw ourselves as a scrappier, more blue-collar team. In Hamilton, people are giving their last dimes, their last dollars to get their tickets. They go, ‘We’ve got this much money for food and this much money for Ti-Cats tickets. What are we going to sacrifice this month? Because it’s definitely not going to be the Ti-Cats tickets. We might have to skip a meal, but we’re going to that game.’
“It was a fight down in the trenches. You don’t know when somebody’s going to go low or take a side-swipe at you. You had to have your eyes open and your ears peeled back so you could know when something’s coming.
“Labour Day against the Argos was the game. We could lose every game in the world but we had to win on Labour Day at Ivor Wynne. The first game I came back to Ivor Wynne with the Argos was Labour Day. The fans, the team, even the referees seemed hostile. I was thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, I couldn’t imagine going through this every year.’ It seemed like everybody was looking at me sideways.”