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Hall of Famers

Hall of Famer

Paul Dojack

Inducted in 1995

Member Details

Date of Birth: April 24, 1917
Place of Birth: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Date of Passing: November 6, 2007
Sport: Football
Member Category: Builder

Career Highlights

1938

Coach, Regina Dales--Canadian Champions

1971

Inducted into Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame

1978

Inducted into Canadian Football Hall of Fame

Hall of Famer Paul Dojack
Sport

Story

The tale of the Regina Dales' 1938 Canadian Junior Championship title game is a true testament to the type of spirit Paul Dojack injected into his teams. The game took place on a Saturday in Montreal against the Montreal Westmounts. On the previous Wednesday night, coach Dojack was still recruiting players even though the team had to board the Regina-Montreal train at 8:30 the following morning. One of the players was still in his army uniform. They started the game playing on ice, so Dojack sent one of his people into town to pick up 18 pairs of running shoes to replace each player's mud cleats. The Gales won 4-3. That was just the start. During a career that covered 24 years, Dojack earned the respect of players and fans alike. He worked his way up, first officiating games in the Western Inter-provincial Football Union (WIFU) and later in the Canadian Football League. Dojack's lifelong involvement with sport began in Regina, Saskatchewan, while he was still a teenager. He was a founder and organizer of the Dale Athletic Club that gave young people in Regina a sport focus during the depression years. The war interfered with Dojack's sport involvement but did not stop it completely. While stationed on the west coast of Canada, he coached many women's army softball and basketball teams and even officiated in his fist professional football game in Vancouver in 1941. Football was his first love, and upon returning to Regina in 1947 he was engaged by the WIFU as a regular field official. When the Canadian Football League wanted to put its best foot forward for a big game in the 1960s, it most often called on Dojack to be the head referee. During his career, he worked 550 games including 14 Grey Cups, eight of which he acted as head referee. One of his most famous games for which he was head referee was the 50th Grey Cup match between the Winnipeg blue Bombers and the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Otherwise knows as the "Fog Bowl" game of 1962, this remains the only Grey Cup ever suspended during play due to fog rolling in over the field at Exhibition Stadium from Lake Ontario. (The Bombers won the match 28-27, notwithstanding that receivers lost site of the ball, players couldn't see each other, and fans couldn't see the action.) Following retirement as a game official in 1971, Dojack continued as the supervisor of Western Officials for two years and then retired from football. He spent 37 years with the Saskatchewan Boys School before retiring as director from there in 1975. Ten years later, the school was renamed the Paul Dojack Youth Centre.