The 65th Grey Cup, also known as The Ice Bowl or The Staples Game,[1] was played on November 27, 1977, at Montreal's Olympic Stadium.
A blizzard hit Montreal two days prior to the game, and stadium crews salted the field to melt the snow.
To combat the conditions, many Alouette players affixed staples to the bottom of their shoes in order to get good traction.
With a record Grey Cup crowd of 68,318 at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, the home team did not disappoint in a 41-6 rout over their Western rivals.
The kicking game carried over from the 1975 Grey Cup as both Montreal's Don Sweet and Edmonton's Dave Cutler scored all the points in the first half.
Sweet booted two field goals, and Cutler kicked another before a Grey Cup touchdown drought spanning eight quarters between these teams was finally put to rest.
Wade threw a seven-yard touchdown pass to Peter Dalla Riva to put the Alouettes ahead 23-6.
Just prior to the start of the fourth quarter, Wade threw a 10-yard major to a wide-open John O'Leary, and the rout was on.
Cornerback Vernon Perry returned an interception a Grey Cup record 74 yards to help set up Wade's seven-yard touchdown pass to Bob Gaddis.
As is common in late November, Montreal received a fair amount of snow before game time.
The Eskimos, using standard football cleats, never quite found their footing on the icy AstroTurf field (which had a carpet-like texture then, unlike modern artificial turf systems).
Tony Proudfoot, Alouette defensive back and the man largely responsible for perhaps the cleverest ploy in Grey Cup history: We just had our 25th anniversary reunion of the team which beat Edmonton in the 1977 so-called Staples Game.
It was icy cold and there had been a big snowstorm with a transit strike, and fans walking all the way from downtown to Olympic Stadium.
We really knew we had something when Gerry Dattilio caught a short pass from Sonny Wade and ran right past Larry Highbaugh for a big gain.