In 1929, Canadian Football consisted of 7 separate leagues, which only competed within its own league during the regular season.  Each league would have teams that would qualify for the post-season, and the right to compete for the 17th Grey Cup Championship.  This
included the IRFU (Interprovincial Rugby Football Union), the ORFU West (Ontario Rugby Football Union - West), the ORFU East (Ontario Rugby Football Union - East), the CIRFU (Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union), the ARFU (Alberta Rugby Football Union), the MRFU (Manitoba Rugby Football Union), and the SRFU (Saskatchewan Rugby Football Union).  1929 was filled with dominant teams as 7 of the teams lost 1 game or less. In the first round of the playoffs, it was the Hamilton Tigers over the Sarnia Imperials 14-2, Queen's University over the Univeristy of Toronto 15-5, the Regina Roughriders over St. John's College 19-3, and the Calgary Tigers would advance via forfeit over the Vancouver Athletic Club. In the Semi-Finals, it was the Hamiliton Tigers over Queen's University 14-3, while the Regina Roughriders would take care of the Calgary Tigers 15-8, setting up the match-up for the 17th Grey Cup Championship.  The 17th Grey Cup was played on November 30, 1929, before 1,906 fans at the A.A.A.  Grounds at Hamilton. Miserable weather conditions held the attendance to less than 2,000 people for the 17th Annual Grey Cup game.  Hamilton defeated the Roughriders by a score of 14-3 in spite of Regina's success with the forward pass.  What stood out above anything else in the Roughriders' bag of tricks was their enexpected and anbundant use of the much debated forward pass.  Launching this potent weapon early in the afternoon, with "Jersey" Campbell, southpaw snapback, elected to do
most of the stossing, the westerners discovered that Hamilton had manufactured no defense against the aerial threat.  The result was that Campbell had thrown nine passes, and Mitchell two, eight of which had been caught and completed for gains varying up to 40 yards. Theirextravagant use of the pass, which they had scarcely used back home, was one of the chief reasons why Regina managed to put up the finest fight of any western team in the Canadian final. Hamilton attempted only one pass in the game.  "Huck" Welch threw the ball to Jimmie Simpson, who in turn lateralled it to "Cap" Fear, and he ended up scoring the try, but it was disallowed because of the official's ruling that Simpson caught the ball inside Regina's 25-yard ilne, an illegal play.  The official, Priestly, happened to be from Winnipeg, and there were some insinuations that his decision was influenced by his place of residence. The general concensus, however, seemed to be that the conditions of the field were so bad that it was almost impossible to tell exactly where the 25-yard line was, and as a result Priestly had called the play the way he saw it.  Even with the moderate success of the forward pass during the 1929 season, the CRU stated that the pass would be used in the Grey Cup game of 1930 only if it had been used in the unions of the competing teams.